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EU: SITCEN’s emerging role

01 January 2005

Another indication of the growing executive power of the Council is the role of the Joint Situation Centre (known as SitCen). Last year Mr William Shapcott, Director of SITCEN, gave evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union’s examination of EU counter-terrorism preparation (14 November 2004). He said that SITCEN “had existed as a sort of empty shell” until 11 September 2001 but that soon after the sharing of intelligence and assessments on external relations started. Later, in 2004, it was decided to extend the scope of SITCEN to cover internal security too especially through national security services (Solana announced as much in July 2004, see Statewatch vol 14 no 5).

What is revealing in Mr Shapcott’s answers to the committee is the status of SITCEN – it is not as we might have implied previously part of the emerging military structure:

the Situation Centre has always been in the [General] Secretariat. We have been quite careful, even from the beginning, not to formally have it in the Second Pillar. We have played with Solana’s double-hatting. He is the Secretary General; we are attached to his cabinet, so we are squarely in the Secretariat General.. [and] Solana has contacts with Justice Ministers which he never used to have. I now go to a host of JHA Committee meetings which I would never have dreamt of a long time ago.

Mr Shapcott also told the committee that SITCEN was looking forward to the new Constitution coming into force as this would give it direct access to the 128 EU missions based around the world. At the moment they are “Commission delegations” but “the Commission does not like us [SITCEN] to task them”. Under the Constitution the “External Action Service” will come into being and “we can task them, we can steer their activities”. Under the Constitution Mr Solana, currently the Council’s “High Representative” common foreign and defence policy, will become the EU Foreign Minister.

The Council is clearly bidding to take over the Commission’s current external relations role, though many in the European Parliament are not happy with this idea.