Europol: Draft Convention examined (1)
01 January 1991
Europol: Draft Convention examined
artdoc July=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