2024 marks the year in which Europol celebrates its 25th anniversary. What originally began as the European Drugs Unit in 1994 has, over the last 25 years, grown into Europol: an organisation with more than 1700 staff members and 295 liaison officers working at its headquarters in The Hague. Europol Europol became operational on 1 July 1999, following the ratification and adoption by all then EC Member States of the legal acts provided for in the 1995 Europol Convention. On 1 January 2010, Europol turned into an EU agency on the basis of the Lisbon Treaty.

Successful launches at Europol include: the European Cybercrime Centre at Europol (EC3) in 2013; the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) in 2016; the European Financial and Economic Crime Centre (EFECC) in 2020; and the Digital Forensics Unit in 2022. Other milestones include the initiation of the annual European Police Chiefs Convention (EPCC) in 2011, the launch of Europe’s Most Wanted Fugitives website in 2016, the 2019 mandate to create an Innovation Lab, and the appointment of the agency’s first Artificial Intelligence Officer in 2024.

Over the years, Europol has supported national authorities in large-scale investigations, such as the take-down of Sky ECC. In 2024, over 3000 law enforcement authorities from more than 70 countries and international entities were connected to Europol through the Secure Information Exchange Network Application (SIENA).

As part of its silver jubilee, the agency will be offering numerous events and activities throughout the year, which started with a conference entitled EU Versus Crime that took place on 28 May 2024.