Europol: Draft Convention examined
01 May 1994
One of the key objectives of Article K of the Maastricht Treaty (now called the Treaty of European Union, TEU) on justice and home affairs (Title VI or more colloquially the "third pillar") is the creation of Europol. The first step was taken last June when it was formally agreed to set up the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU). The second was to agree a permanent base for Europol in the Hague, Netherlands. The third will be the adoption of the Convention of the establishment of Europol, which is planned to be adopted by the Council of Justice and Interior Ministers during the German Presidency of the EU in October. Europol's role will be to exchange and collate information and intelligence from the national contact agencies in the member states of the EU (in the UK this agency is the National Criminal Intelligence Service, NCIS). Like all "third pillar" issues decisions, agreements and Conventions are inter-governmental, that is they are between the 12 individual member states and not part of the legislative programme of the European union (EU).
The Europol Convention will have to be ratified by the 12 EU parliament plus those of the 4 countries which will join at the beginning of 1995. At this stage it is not clear how the UK parliament will be involved in ratifying the Convention. Home Secretary Michael Howard in an explanatory memorandum, date 22 February 1994, says "it is unclear whether ratification will require amendments to United Kingdom law". If no changes in the law are needed it may simply be presented - like the Dublin Convention on asylum-seekers on which there was no parliamentary debate - as an international treaty to be ratified under the 'Ponsonby rules' (which means it is "laid" before parliament and a debate only occurs if enough MPs are sufficiently concerned to insist it is debated).
This Convention has been drafted by the Ad Hoc Working Group on Europol which is permanently chaired by the UK and reports to the K4 Committee via Steering Group 2 on Security and Law Enforcement. This article looks at the draft Convention (date 8 November 1993) and its implications.
Europol: objectives and tasks
Article 1 of the draft Convention (the [] contain alternative or additional forms of words) says that Europol should be created with links to national units. Article 2 states that the objective of Europol is to improve police cooperation in "preventing and combatting unlawful drug trafficking and other serious forms of international crime" (Spain and Greece want terrorism to be specifically included). A meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Europol on 14 December 1993 set out the objectives more clearly: the "list of the forms of crime" include: money laundering; international trafficking in hijacked vehicles, including cargo; international trafficking in arms, ammunition, explosives and military equipment; counterfeiting of money, credit cards etc; trafficking in nuclear substances and dangerous waste; trafficking in human beings; extortion, blackmail and protection racket; abduction and hostage-taking; association of malfaiteurs criminal organisations; homicide; and computer crime. These crimes are to be included to the extent that a) the form of crime is liable to prosecution in all members states [or can be subject to police investigations]; b) the form of crime takes place in at least two member states. The Management Board (see later) will be able, by unanimous decision, to add new forms of crime to this list.
Article 3 sets out the "tasks" of Europol as collecting and analysing information (hard facts, eg: name, address, criminal record etc) and "intelligence" (which of its nature can include speculation and opinions); preparing "situation reports" and crime analyses ; and, in a new development, "maintain a central database of national data and new data". Article 3.2 says the Council (the body representing the member states) may add task - although several states (Germany, UK, Netherlands and Denm