By Bruno Waterfield - 27th June 2006
Moves to greater EU justice powers and reduced national vetoes over police and crime cooperation have been tabled by the European commission.
Cross-border hot pursuit by police officers, sharing data on highly mobile terror suspects or child pornographers and procedural rights for crime suspects are central to proposals.
European commission president José Manuel Barroso and justice commissioner Franco Frattini have unveiled the package aimed at speeding up the EU’s response to crime and terrorism.
The Brussels executive is seeking to move Europe on in the direction of deeper EU integration and in the absence of the European constitution.
Key to wooing EU citizens following French and Dutch referendum rejections last year will be a raft of new measures to combat terrorism and cross border crime.
“Freedom, security and justice are at the heart of the commission reform agenda,” said Barroso.
“In the first 18 months of this commission over 17 per cent of all commission proposals cover the area of justice, liberty and security. This is a key feature of our Europe of results agenda.”
Highlighting slow progress on agreeing police cooperation and information exchange measures, Frattini is ready to name and shame governments that drag their heels on EU crime legislation.
The Italian commissioner noted that only five countries – Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain – have implemented legislation to tackle child pornography.
Only one EU capital – Madrid – has acted on 2002 legislation to set up joint police investigation teams for cross border crime.
Key legislation on governing privacy rights for data exchange between law enforcement data bases and to tackle racism are deadlocked.
“I can testify from discussions… that it is proving to be very difficult to move forward in the EU in areas such as mutual recognition in criminal matters and police cooperation,” said Frattini.
“It is very hard to explain to public opinion why this happens.”
Key to Barroso and Frattini’s strategy is an existing “bridging clause”, a 10 year old article 42 of the EU treaty, allowing justice decision-making to be moved to the European level.
“We have looked at non-compliance and failure to communicate national measures. We have a striking lack of transposition by some member states in areas of police and criminal justice,” said Barroso.
“Secondly, ten years on… decision-making remains slow and cumbersome. We are not using the existing treaties to their full potential.”
“We are aware of the political sensitivities and the specific situation of certain countries. But we believe that 10 years after establishing the legal framework we cannot continue to justify the lack of accountability and use of unanimity.”
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