Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers
01 July 1994
The Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers meeting in Luxembourg on 20 June discussed fifteen agenda items and passed on the nod a further fifteen reports known as "A" points (those on which there is unanimous agreement).
The meeting adopted a new resolution under which the admission of third country nationals for permanent employment would be "exceptional", and strong penalties institutionalised. The resolution provided that discrimination in favour of EU and EEA nationals must be maintained and reinforced, if necessary by national legislation, by January 1996 and that these principles were mandatory for all member states. Non-EEA nationals were to be considered only for temporary employment where vacancies could not be filled by national or European manpower or by foreigners already forming part of the workforce. Exceptions may also be made for trainees, frontier workers, seasonal workers (allowed in to the EU for six months maximum every year), and inter- corporate transfers of key personnel. Mr Tobback, the Belgian Interior Minister said the resolution would be "grist to the mill for those who want a Fortress Europe", but no Belgian reservation was recorded.
The Ministers' meeting moved a step closer to a Europe-wide computerised fingerprint storing and recognition system by agreeing to employ a consultant to conduct a "study of users" needs and demands of a system "to detect fraudulent or multiple asylum requests". The six month 128,000 ECU contract was awarded to "Consortium Bossard, Team Consult and Organotecnica" (others bidding included Trasys and Andersen Consulting). Part of the specification is to look at the requirements for converting existing records. Several countries, including Germany and the UK, already have such systems in operation on a national level, whereby all asylum-seekers are compulsorily fingerprinted when they make their claim.
They decided that the Director of Europol, from 1 July 1994, would be Mr Jrgen Storbeck (Germany), the acting co-ordinator. No decision was taken on the two assistant Directors but Mr Bruggemann (Belgium) and Mr Rauchs (Luxembourg) had their terms as deputy coordinators extended to the end of 1994 (see Statewatch vol 4 no 3; apparently the UK candidate for one of the deputy post, Mr Valls-Russell, is still a possibility). The budget for Europol in 1995 was set as 3.7 million ECU (this excludes the cost of national liaison officers seconded to the Hague HQ). Discussion on the draft Europol Convention centred on the German request for their 16 Lnde to have access as they were the "competent legal authorities". The Spanish Minister argued for terrorism to be included in Europol's remit but this was resisted by others (anti-terrorist work is still conducted within the old Trevi framework of the Police Working Group on Terrorism and several countries including the UK are opposed to it being brought within what is seen as the "less secure" Europol setup).
Consulting the parliament
A major row broke out between the Ministers, when discussing the Conventions on Europol, the European Information System and the Customs Information System, over the need to consult the European Parliament on developments on justice, policing and immigration. Article K6 of the Treaty of European Union (the Maastricht Treaty), covering these issues, is quite explicit:
"The Presidency and the Commission shall regularly inform the European Parliament of discussions in the areas covered by this Title. The Presidency shall consult the European Parliament on the principal aspects of activities in the areas referred to in this Title and shall ensure that the views of the European Parliament are duly taken into consideration."
The Ministers were divided between those who wanted to interpret this as merely informing the European parliament of their business, a few who wanted consultation as set out above. Others argued for a "compromise" whereby the Presidency of the EU would g