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EU: Implementing the Internal Security Strategy: planning documents
05 August 2015
Two new leaked documents outline the work being undertaken in the Council of the EU to attempt to implement the EU's 'Renewed Internal Security Strategy', adopted in June 2015 and which will run from 2015 to 2020.
The documents are:
Presidency, 'Renewed European Internal Security Strategy Implementation Paper', 10854/15, 14 July 2015
General Secretariat of the Council, 'Timeline for the EU Policy Cycle activities in 2015', 6084/1/15 REV 1, 8 July 2015
The implementation paper
The first is a highly-detailed "implementation document" that lists the upcoming work of Council working groups in relation to the Renewed Internal Security Strategy (pdf), adopted in June this year. The process is being led by the Committee on operational cooperation on intenal security (COSI):
"The Presidency's objective is to allow COSI to develop and maintain a precise overview of the activities that the Council's Working Parties and Committees conduct or foresee and to allow COSI to give appropriate orientations and guidance for the implementation of the Renewed Internal Security Strategy."
The working groups dealt with in the document are:
COSI
CATS (Article 36 Committee)
Terrorism Working Party (TWP)
Law Enforcement Working Party (LEWP)
Customs Cooperation Working Party (CCWP)
Working Party on Information Exchange and Data Protection (DAPIX)
Friends of the Presidency Group (FoP) on Cyber Issues
Working Party on Schengen Matters ("SIS/SIRENE configuration")
Working Party on Frontiers
Working Party on General Matters including Evaluations (GENVAL)
Horizonal Working Party on Drugs (HDG)
Working Party on Cooperation in Criminal Matters (COPEN)
Working Party on Fundamental Rights, Citizens' Rights and Free Movement of Persons (FREMP)
Forthcoming work includes, amongst other things:
European Network of Law Enforcement Technology Services
"Security-related research and industrial policy [Measure 20]
"The European Network of Law Enforcement Technology Services (ENLETS) should further implement the Council Conclusions on strengthening the internal security authorities' involvement in security-related research and industrial policy and thus contribute to the promotion of securityrelated research and innovation by further involving end-users at all stages of the process, from conception to market."
For more information on ENLETS, see:
EU funding for network developing surveillance, intelligence-gathering and remote vehicle stopping tools (Statewatch News Online, January 2015)
Joint Police Operations
"Organisation of Joint Police Operations [Measure 15]
"LEWP will monitor the organisation of Joint Police Operations (JPOs), which address cross-border crime and contribute to improving operational cooperation. Objective: Present results of the JPO LUXCAR and discuss the need for further JPOs."
For more information on Joint Police Operations, see:
'AMBERLIGHT: Joint Police Operation detects 1,344 "overstayers" but only 10 using forged documents', Statewatch News Online August 2015
'"A huge number of migrants": over 19,000 people apprehended during joint police operation Mos Maiorum', Statewatch News Online, January 2015
European Police Register Information System
"European Police Register Information System (EPRIS) [Measure 7]
DAPIX will contribute to the reflection regarding the possibilities of setting up a European Police Register Information System Objective: provide input for legislative proposals COM may submit in 2016."
This proposal was formerly known as the European Police Records Information System. In December 2012 the European Commission said the system could not be justified, but it appears to have been resurrected.
For more information on EPRIS, see:
'Member States and Europol seek to ease EU-wide access to police databases through "automation of the data exchange process"', Statewatch News Online, February 2013
'Member State concerns arise over the development of the European Police Records Index System (EPRIS)', Statewatch News Online, June 2011
Policy cycle for organised and serious international crime
The second document is a timeline for 2015 and early 2016 for the 'EU Policy Cycle for organised and serious international crime'. This is listed as a priority in the Renewed Internal Security Strategy (pdf), which stresses:
"[T]he important role of the EU policy cycle for the fight against organised and serious international crime10 for strengthening operational cooperation and thus considerably contributing to the implementation of the renewed European Union Internal Security Strategy 2015-2020 as well as ensuring the proactive and criminal intelligence-led approach in this regard."
The Policy Cycle is intended to allow the EU - in particular the Council - greater influence over operational police cooperation, primarily through setting priorities, monitoring the outcomes of operations, and suggesting alterations for future working methods and operations.
The first policy cycle ran from 2011 to 2013; the current one is the first "full" cycle, running from 2014 to 2017. Its priorities are "illegal" immigration; human trafficking into and within the EU; counterfeit goods; Missing Trade Intra Community fraud; synthetic drugs; cocaine and heroin trafficking; cybercrime; and criminal use and illicit trafficking of firearms.
For more information on the policy cycle, see:
General Secretariat of the Council, '
Implementation of the Council conclusions setting priorities in the fight against organised crime for 2014 - 2017: identification of the relevant actors', 11538/2/14 REV 2, 20 October 2014
Chris Jones, 'EU joint police operations target irregular migrants', Statewatch Journal, vol 23 no 3/4, February 2014
For more detail on the Internal Security Strategy itself, see:
Chris Jones, 'Full compliance: the EU's new security agenda', Statewatch Analysis, May 2015 (pdf)
European Commission, 'The final implementation report of the EU Internal Security Strategy 2010-2014', COM(2014) 365 final (pdf)
Tony Bunyan, 'First thoughts on the EU’s Internal Security Strategy', Statewatch Analysis, November 2010 (pdf)