EU: Council of Justice & Home Affairs Ministers
01 September 1994
The Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers held an informal meeting in Berlin on 7 September. Mr Manfred Kanther, the German Interior Minister, leading for the German Presidency of the EU, called for Europol to be given operational powers. There should, he argued, be a "European FBI" with officers able to cross national boundaries with powers to carry out investigations and make arrests. This long-standing German demand did not meet with much support from other Ministers, partly because there is not yet agreement on the details of setting up of Europol itself (see Statewatch, vol 4 no 3 on the draft Europol Convention and this issue on recent changes to it).
The programme of the German Presidency on immigration and policing under Title VI (the "third pillar") gives a summary of measures and policy developments in the pipeline. On immigration and asylum: 1) draft resolutions (that is, policy decisions for the EU states) on the admission of self employed persons from third countries; admission of students from third countries; burden-sharing with regard to the admission and residence of refugees from third countries. 2) Another measure is directed at cooperation between member states on repatriation. The Immigration Law Practitioners Association comment: "Does this mean, for instance, the Member States will hire trains to travel across Europe collecting Romanians refused asylum?" 3) The Dublin Convention, agreed in 1990, still has to be ratified by four of the 12 EU states - the Convention set out the principles of asylum seekers only being able to apply to one country in the EU. 4) Discussion on the common list of countries whose nationals require visas to enter the EU. The "list", drawn up by the European Commission, is based on that agreed between the nine member countries of the Schengen Agreement in the EU. This list of 112 countries includes 38 countries, largely from the Commonwealth, only seven of whom currently require visas to enter the UK.
The Commission's listing, published in December 1993, did not include the so-called "white list" of 20 countries who would not need visas to enter. These countries are: Andorra, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino, Slovak Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, USA and the Vatican. 5) the German Presidency is proposing that CIREFI (the Centre for Information Reflection and Exchange on Crossing of the External Borders and Immigration) should be made into an operational instrument to combat "illegal" immigration and develop into an "international notification system for a European intelligence and information gathering centre".
On policing there is little new in the work programme. The Europol Convention is to be advanced (see story in this issue); an "Europe-wide review" of organised crime is to be conducted; and the introduction of electronic immobilisers to prevent vehicle theft to be investigated. The German Presidency programme is quite candid on the expected role of the European Information System (EIS): "this
police database is to perform essentially the same functions as the Schengen Information System, but at EU level"(Italics added).
Berlin Declaration
On 8 September the Interior Ministers of the 12 EU states plus Austria, Sweden, Norway and Finland met with Ministers from Central and Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic and Hungary) to agree the "Berlin Declaration on Increased Cooperation in Combatting Drug Crime and Organised Crime in Europe". The Declaration covers increased police cooperation including the exchange of liaison officers; "cooperation on the use of informants and undercover agents" and "controlled deliveries" ("sting" operations) to combat the drug trade; assessment of the threat of nuclear "theft". And on immigration: improved cooperation on visa policies; "effective borders con