Europol/EDU: To exchange of data with US
01 January 1996
The provisional agenda of the Italian Presidency for the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers (JHA) includes a report on: "Access of the United States to the data held by the Europol Drugs Unit, as a protocol". While this proposal comes out of a wider plan for EU-US cooperation (see feature in this issue) it confirms the suspicion that the Council of Ministers intends to further extend the remit of the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU) prior to the ratification and implementation of the Europol Convention, which is not expected before 1998 at the earliest.
In December 1994 the Council extended the role of the EDU, agreed in June 1993, from the single issue of drug trafficking adding three more: illicit nuclear trafficking; "clandestine immigration networks"; and vehicle trafficking.
The Joint Action on the Europol Drugs Unit, signed by the Ministers on 10 March 1995, specifically excludes giving "any personal information to states other than Member States or to any international organisation". In practice the "data" held by the EDU is only partly "personal" as it includes details of surveillance, "sting operations" and networks of groups.
UK ratifying while opposing ECJ
The UK government, as predicted in the last issue of Statewatch, started the ratification process for the Europol Convention on Friday 8 December. The rules of the unwritten British constitution (it is based on precedent) says international treaties (as this Convention is defined), should under the "Ponsonby rules" be published as a Command Paper and "laid" before parliament - both of which happened on Friday 8 December. By tradition being "laid" before parliament is taken to mean a listing in the substantial daily "order paper" of the House of Commons which MPs flip through to check what is due to be discussed. But on this occasion it was "laid" obscurely, on page 92, of the "Votes and Proceedings" report for 8 December. The Convention has now "laid" before parliament for more than the constitutional 21 days so the ratification process can be completed whenever the government decides to ask for the Royal Assent (a mere formality).
The week after the UK started its ratification process Maria Teresa Fernandes de la Vega, for the Spanish Presidency, reported to the European Parliament and, in a clear reference to the UK, "did not hide her frustration at what she termed the intransigence of one member state in particular for blocking agreement on Europol..."
The role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the Europol Convention remains undecided - it was discussed at the JHA Councils in September and November, at the Madrid Council, and the Informal JHA Council in Rome on 26-27 January this year. The UK government is opposed to the ECJ having any role, while the other 14 EU governments have signed a Declaration saying they will refer disputes to it. The deadline, set in Cannes in June 1995, for resolving the dispute is the end of the Italian Presidency of the EU in June.
The 14 EU governments want the ECJ to be included because the Europol Convention is the first of a string of Conventions in the pipeline and if the ECJ is denied a role in this one it will be excluded in future ones. Echoing the scarcely disguised frustration of the majority the Dutch government, at the instigation of its parliament, proposed at the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers meeting on 23 November 1995 that a protocol should be attached to the Dublin Convention giving competence to the ECJ. The Dutch, who still have to ratify this Convention signed in June 1990, want the judicial guarantee of a harmonised interpretation of the provisions of the Dublin Convention (which introduced the "one-stop" rule for asylum-seekers).
Europol will take more than two years to set up
The work programme for the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU), for January to June 1996, is now divided into two parts. The first concerns the EDU's on-going work,