EU: Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers
01 November 1993
The first meeting of the new Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers of the EU was held in Brussels on 29-30 November. This new Council has taken over the work of the Trevi Group and the Ad Hoc Group on Immigration and is serviced by the new K4 Committee (the old Coordinators Group) (see Statewatch vol 3, no 4).
The meeting had an enormous agenda of 44 items (including 14 'A' points, namely items on which there is already agreement) but no new conventions emerged and there was only one declaration (with provisionals views on extradition). The lack of decisions was partly due to the new structure only coming into place with the final ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on 1 November and partly because this area was not a priority for the Belgian Presidency.
The new structure
One of the reports dealt with concerned the future structure of work under this Council. All the reports for this meeting had been prepared by the "old" working groups as none of the new K4 Committee steering groups (and their working parties) had met. The K4 Committee had met in mid-November but its work now also comes under COREPER (a French acronym), the Committee of Permanent Representatives from each EU state. The future structure looks like this:
Council of Interior & Justice Ministers (meeting six monthly) Informal meetings of Interior and Justice Ministers (six monthly before the Council meetings).
COREPER: agrees the agenda and negotiates of consensus.
K4 Committee (one official from each country plus the Commission) with three steering groups (each with a number of working parties):
1) immigration & asylum with working parties on: 1) migration (previously called "expulsion and admission"); 2) asylum; 3) visas; 4) external frontiers; 5) forged documents plus two permanent bodies the "clearing house" on asylum CIREA (Centre for Information Discussion and Exchange on asylum) and the clearing house on immigration CIREFI (Centre for information, discussion and exchange on the crossing of borders and immigration). 2) security law enforcement police and customs cooperation with working parties on: 1) terrorism; 2) police cooperation (operational and technical); 3) organised crime and drugs; 4) customs; 5) Ad Hoc Group on Europol. The inclusion of the mechanisms set up under the Police Working Group on Terrorism for example the Trevi Secure Fax Network (TSFN) is still being discussed. 3) judicial cooperation with working parties on: 1) criminal judicial cooperation; 2) civil judicial cooperation. In addition the K4 Committee will oversee the two planned EU- wide computer systems: 1) the European Information System (EIS) (covering immigration asylum security and policing). A Convention on the EIS is expected to be ready for ministerial signature in October 1994 (under the German Presidency) (see Statewatch vol 3 no 5). 2) the Customs Information System (CIS). A Convention on the CIS is being prepared for signature in June 1994 (under the Greek Presidency). The interface between the two system is still being discussed. The first stage for adopting Conventions is "ministerial signature" by each of the 12 EU states then ratification by each country's parliaments, followed by the official deposit of ratification documents.
Spanish and Dutch "reservations"
All the decisions reached by the Ministers during the Council meeting were subject to either a Spanish or Dutch "reservations" - which have to be withdrawn before measures can be agreed at the 'summit', the EU Council meeting of Prime Ministers on 10-11 December. The Spanish delegation objected to the refusal of the Belgian state to extradite two alleged ETA members who they say were part of its infrastructure (providing mail drops and transportation). However, the two people have applied for asylum in Belgium and its Commission for Refugees has accepted their application but has not yet made a decision on it. They are currently being held in prison but unde