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Europol given go-ahead by Trevi

01 January 1991

Europol given go-ahead by Trevi
artdoc February=1992

At their meeting in the Hague on 2-3 December the six-monthly
meeting of Trevi ministers responsible for police and security
matters decided to establish Europol (European police
organisation). The objective of Europol is to provide the
centralised exchange and co-ordination of crime-related
information between EC member states. This includes the
collection and analysis of information on cross-border crime,
including crime that extends beyond the area of the EC.

The first element of the initiative was the decision to set up
a Europol Drugs Unit which will complement the decision at the
Trevi meeting in June to create a European Drugs Intelligence
Unit (EDIU). The ministers agreed on the 1992 Programme of Action
in connection with the removal of internal frontiers from 1
January 1993. The measures include a study of the `relationship
between Community legislation on telecommunications and
possibilities at a national level for judicial interception of
telecommunications'; to extend co-operation particularly in areas
of environmental crime, the development of crime analysis and the
combatting of money laundering. They also agreed on contact
points in each country for the maintenance of public order in
member states `so that contact can be made at an early stage if
specific disturbances of public order acquire an international
dimension... The Ministers emphasised in this regard the
fundamental right to demonstrate.'
Trevi, press release, December 1991.

Statewatch, Volume 2 no 1, January/February 1992