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Europol

01 November 1992

The embryonic office and staff of Europol has been set up in Strasbourg (see Statewatch, vol 2 no 1). The office has been set provisionally on the same site as the Schengen Information System, is due to begin operation on 1 January 1993 (the permanent location has not yet been formally agreed). The fifteen staff, the working party, is comprised on 3 representatives from the UK, 3 from France, 3 from Germany, 2 from the Netherlands, 1 from Spain, 1 from Denmark, 1 from Ireland and 1 from Italy. Belgium and Luxembourg are not currently represented.

The UK representatives are Detective Chief Inspector Andy Baker, from SO2 (Crime support), Detective Chief Inspector Ian Morrison, with extensive experience in SO11 (Criminal Intelligence), and former Metropolitan police officer and head of the National Drugs Intelligence Unit Barry Price is representing the Home Office. DCI Baker told a briefing meeting at Scotland Yard that: "The idea is to link European criminal intelligence, but so far it is only Holland and the UK who have a National Criminal Intelligence Service-type body. The other ten have a year to set one up".

The working party is currently charged with setting up the first Europol initiative, the European Drugs Unit (EDU). They will be reporting to the Ad Hoc Group on Europol, the Trevi 92 working group and the Council of Ministers. It is expected that the creation of Europol will be formalised through an inter- governmental Convention - thus excluding Europol from the formal structures of the European Community and from scrutiny by the European Parliament.

Job 2.10.92.