Organized Crime as a Travelling Problem: Agenda Setting in the European Council and the European Commission

The attention devoted by political venues to issues over time is of major relevance in agenda-setting in any polity, and the European Union (EU) is not an exception. Particularly the political consideration given by the European Commission and the European Council is fundamental, as they play an important role as formal and informal agenda-setters, respectively. Focusing on organized crime in the EU, a policy issue which appears to have an erratic and heterogeneous definition, this contribution aims at shedding light on the way in which this topic has ‘travelled’ between these institutions in the last three decades. Thus, by means of examining in quantitatively and qualitatively the content and tone of core policy documents of these venues, this contribution will show the allocation and development of political attention to organized crime since the 80’s, evidencing those pronounced flows of institutional consideration and analyzing the different dimensions of this policy domain.