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EU: Informal Justice and Home Affairs Minister meeting, Dresden, Germany, 14-16 January 2007

01 January 2007

Documents:

- Stepping up cross-border police cooperation by transposing the Prüm Treaty into the legal framework of the EU (pdf)

- Shaping European home affairs policies after the expiry of the Hague programme in 2010 (pdf)

- Initiative concerning the European migration policy (pdf)

Data protection: It is looking increasingly likely that the German Council Presidency is intending to drop the draft Framework Decision on data protection on police and judicial matters - proposed by the Commission in October 2005 and the subject of Opinions from the European Parliament and two from the European Data Protection Supervisor and lengthy discussions in the Council Working Party - and replace it by the data protection provisions in the Prum Treaty. The draft Framework Decision is not listed as one of the issues to be discussed at the JHA Council meetings during the German Presidency. For background see: Statewatch's Observatory on data protection in the EU (link)

Prum Treaty: The document on the Prum Treaty - adopted in secret meetings by Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain - confirms that it intended to make it part of EU law without any amendments being allowed. See: House of Lords report: Behind Closed Doors (pdf); Statewatch: Some remarks on Schengen III (the Prum Convention, pdf) and the Prum Convention (full-text, pdf)

Immigration: The immigration document confirms that policies agreed by the self-appointed G6 group of EU governments (comprised of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK) are to form the basis of EU-wide policies.

Future JHA programme: "the German Presidency proposes to set up a high-level advisory group on the future of European home affairs policies as from 2010" This group would comprise Mr Frattini from the European Commission, Home Affairs Ministers and "specific experts designated ad personam may support the group as needed". Its work is to be "transparent and open", that is, only to government ministers and their officials. The group is to draw up a programme to follow on from Tampere (1999) and Hague (2005) - neither of these programmes were publicly available until they were adopted thus side-lining parliaments and public alike.