The EU Commission is said to be very concerned that drug traffickers could flood the European drug market with highly addictive fentanyl.
Europe is already struggling to overcome spirally drug-related crime rates with gang violence spilling out in cities like Marseille and Antwerp.
With European officials already struggling to combat the growing cocaine trade, the EU Commission fears another “tsunami” in the form of fentanyl.
Fentanyl is significantly stronger than heroin and extremely deadly.
The synthetic opioid has been blamed for a surge in overdose deaths across the United States.
Irish crime journalist Nicola Tallant told the Crime World Podcast: “Brussels is also looking to develop a sort of a European drug alert system to let national authorities and drug users know when dangerous new substances have filtered into the market.
“That’s fentanyl they’re talking about that.
“They’re very worried about that being the next problem. They haven’t got to grips with cocaine, they still don’t know how to sort of stop this tsunami, they’re calling it that’s hitting and corrupting society.
“They’re now going to have to have a double-pronged approach because fentanyl is big time on the way.”
Authorities in European port cities like Antwerp have been trying to stem the flow of illegal drugs which are smuggled by powerful criminal gangs.
Such efforts have failed to prevent the growth of the drug trade which has seen the rise of increasingly violent criminal networks.
Meanwhile, in France, Police authorities in Marseille appear powerless to prevent the spiral of violence which has seen rival drug gangs trade deadly attacks on a near daily basis.
In the past two years, the interior ministry has sent more than hundreds extra police officers to Marseille in an effort to quell the recurring clashes with little impact.
