Category: 8. Judicial cooperation

House of Lords recommends to change the Governement’s strategy on the UK’s opt-in.

“The UK’s opt-in Protocol: implications of the Government’s approach” 

NOTA BENE : the full report is accessible on the House of Lords website.

SUMMARY

This report focuses on the Government’s approach to the opt-in Protocol, introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, by virtue of which the UK has a right not to participate in EU justice and home affairs (JHA) measures. At issue is whether the opt-in Protocol can be interpreted to mean that it is the content of an EU measure which determines the application of the Protocol, rather than a legal base under the JHA title of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (Title V).

We express no view on the desirability or otherwise of the opt-in mechanisms introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. The function of this report is to examine the way in which the Government has sought to interpret those mechanisms.

We examine the Government’s interpretation of the expression “pursuant to [Title V]” in the opt-in Protocol, and conclude that it has an accepted legal meaning, namely that a Title V legal base is required before the opt-in can be triggered. As a consequence, we recommend that the Government reconsider its broader interpretation.

We consider the Government’s approach to determining the legal base of an EU measure with JHA content. We conclude that the distinction it draws between whole, partial, and incidental JHA measures is misconceived. We again recommend it reconsider its approach.

We consider whether the Government’s overall approach to the opt-in Protocol gives rise to legal uncertainty. We draw a distinction between potential and actual legal uncertainty, concluding that the potential of the Government’s policy to create legal uncertainty is considerable. We further conclude that the Government’s approach risks breaching the EU legal duty of “sincere cooperation”.

We then look at how the opt-in Protocol has been interpreted by the EU institutions. The Government believes that the Commission has actively pursued a policy of “legal base shopping”, in order to undermine the UK’s opt-in rights. In one specific case it provides evidence that lends some support to this allegation, in respect of the former Commission. With this partial exception, however, we conclude that there is no persuasive evidence to suggest that the Commission has circumvented the UK’s opt-in rights.

We review the approach of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) to determining the legal base of international agreements and, while recognising the Government’s concerns, conclude that there is no evidence to suggest that the CJEU has sought deliberately to undermine the safeguards in the opt-in Protocol. We conclude that it is highly unlikely that the CJEU will change its established approach to determining legal base, including for measures with JHA content. We recommend that the Government review its litigation strategy in the light of this conclusion.

Finally, we recommend that the Government consider the feasibility of an inter-institutional agreement on the scope of Title V. Continue reading “House of Lords recommends to change the Governement’s strategy on the UK’s opt-in.”

THE UK IMPLEMENTS EU FREE MOVEMENT LAW – IN THE STYLE OF FRANZ KAFKA

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON EU LAW ANALYSIS 

Thursday, 19 March 2015

By Steve PEERS

Most laws are complicated enough to start with, but with EU Directives there is an extra complication – the obligation to transpose them into national law. A case study in poor transposition is the UK’s implementation of the EU’s citizens’ Directive, which regulates many aspects of the movement of EU citizens and their family members between EU Member States. Unfortunately, that defective implementation is exacerbated by a further gap between the wording of this national law and its apparent application in practice, and by the unwillingness of the EU Commission to sue the UK (or other Member States) even for the most obvious breaches of the law.

It’s left to private individuals, who usually have limited means, to spend considerable time and money challenging the UK government in the national courts. One such case was the recent victory in McCarthy (discussed here), concerning short-term visits to the UK by EU citizens (including UK citizens living elsewhere in the EU) with third-country (ie, non-EU) family members.  The UK government has just amended the national rules implementing the EU citizens’ Directive (the ‘EEA Regulations’) to give effect to that judgment – but it has neglected to amend the rules relating to another important free movement issue.

Implementing the McCarthy judgment

The citizens’ Directive provides that if EU citizens want to visit another Member State for a period of up to three months, they can do so with very few formalities. However, if those EU citizens are joined by a third-country family member, it’s possible that this family member will have to obtain a short-term visa for the purposes of the visit. The issue of who needs a short-term visa and who doesn’t is mostly left to national law in the case of people visiting the UK and Ireland, but it’s mostly fully harmonised as regards people visiting all the other Member States.

Although the EU’s citizens’ Directive does simplify the process of those family members obtaining a visa, it’s still a complication, and so the Directive goes further to facilitate free movement, by abolishing the visa requirement entirely in some cases. It provides that no visa can be demanded where the third-country family members have a ‘residence card’ issued by another EU Member State. According to the Directive, those residence cards have to be issued whenever an EU citizen with a third-country family member goes to live in another Member State – for instance, where a British man moves to Germany with his Indian wife. Conversely, though, they are not issued where an EU citizen has not left her own Member State – for instance, a British woman still living in the UK with her American wife.

How did the UK implement these rules? The main source of implementation is the EEA Regulations, which were first adopted in 2006, in order to give effect to the citizens’ Directive by the deadline of 30 April that year. Regulation 11 of these Regulation states that non-EU family members of EU citizens must be admitted to the UK if they have a passport, as well as an ‘EEA family permit, a residence card or a permanent residence card’. A residence card and permanent residence card are creations of the EU Directive, but an ‘EEA family permit’ is a creature of UK law.

While the wording of the Regulation appears to say that non-EU family members of EU citizens have a right of admission if they hold any of these three documents, the UK practice is more restrictive than the wording suggests. In practice, having a residence card was usually not enough to exempt those family members from a visa requirement to visit the UK, unless they also held an EEA family permit. Regulation 12 (in its current form) says that the family member is entitled to an EEA family permit if they are either travelling to the UK or will be joining or accompanying an EU citizen there. In practice, the family permit is issued by UK consulates upon application, for renewable periods of six months. In many ways, it works in the same way as a visa requirement.

An amendment to the Regulations in 2013 provided that a person with a ‘qualifying EEA State residence card’ did not need a visa to visit the UK. But only residence cards issued by Germany and Estonia met this definition. This distinction was made because the UK was worried that some residence cards were issued without sufficient checks or safeguards for forgery, but Germany and Estonia had developed biometric cards that were less likely to be forged.

In the McCarthy judgment, the CJEU ruled that the UK rules breached the EU Directive, which provides for no such thing as an EEA family permit as a condition for admission of non-EU family members of EU citizens with residence cards to the territory of a Member State. The UK waited nearly three months after the judgment to amend the EEA Regulations to give effect to it.

The new amendments cover many issues, but to implement McCarthy they simply redefine a ‘qualifying EEA State residence card’ to include a residence card issued by any EU Member State, as well as any residence card issued by the broader group of countries applying the EEA treaty; this extends the rule to cards issued by Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Presumably this brings the rules into compliance with EU law on this point (the new rules apply from April 6th). That means that non-EU family members of EU citizens will not need a visa to visit the UK from this point, provided that they hold a residence card issued in accordance with EU law, because they are the non-EU family member of an EU citizen who has moved to another Member State. However, this depends also on the practice of interpretation of the rules, including the guidance given to airline staff.

‘Surinder Singh’ cases Continue reading “THE UK IMPLEMENTS EU FREE MOVEMENT LAW – IN THE STYLE OF FRANZ KAFKA”

DENMARK AND EU JUSTICE AND HOME AFFAIRS LAW: DETAILS OF THE PLANNED REFERENDUM

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON EU LAW ANALYSIS

Tuesday, 17 March 2015

by STEVE PEERS 

Danish participation in cross-border criminal law measures is symbolised by ‘The Bridge’, the ‘Nordic Noir’ series about cross-border cooperation in criminal matters between Denmark and Sweden. But due to the changes in EU law in this field, that cooperation might soon be jeopardised. As a result, in the near future, Denmark will in principle be voting on whether to replace the current nearly complete opt-out on EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) law with a partial, selective opt-out. I have previously blogged on the implications of this plan in general terms, but it’s now clear exactly what this vote will be about.

First of all, a short recap of the overall framework (for more detail, see that previous blog post). Back in 1992, Denmark obtained an opt-out from the single currency, defence and aspects of JHA law (it’s widely believed that it also obtained an opt-out from EU citizenship, but this is a ‘Euromyth’). These opt-outs were formalised in the form of a Protocol attached to the EU Treaties as part of the Treaty of Amsterdam. The JHA opt-out was then amended by the Treaty of Lisbon.

At present, Denmark participates in: the EU policing and criminal law measures adopted before the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon; measures relating to the Schengen border control system (as  matter of international law, not EU law); the EU rules on visa lists (as a matter of EU law); and the EU’s Dublin rules on allocation of asylum applications, ‘Brussels’ rules on civil jurisdiction and legislation on service of documents (in the form of treaties with the EU). In contrast, Denmark does not – and cannot – participate in other EU rules on immigration and asylum law or cross-border civil law, or policing and criminal law rules adopted since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon.

The Protocol on Denmark’s legal position either allows it to repeal its JHA opt-out entirely, or selectively. If it chooses to repeal the opt-out selectively, it would then be able to opt in to JHA measures on a case-by-case basis, like the UK and Ireland, although (unlike those states) it would remain fully bound by the Schengen rules. Indeed, those rules will then apply as a matter of EU law in Denmark, not as a matter of international law. Continue reading “DENMARK AND EU JUSTICE AND HOME AFFAIRS LAW: DETAILS OF THE PLANNED REFERENDUM”

Legal aid in criminal proceedings : will the European Parliament improve the Council’s “general approach” ?

by Claire Perinaud (FREE Group Trainee)

State of implementation of the Procedural rights roadmap.

After years of unsuccessful attempts, starting in 2004 with a general Commission proposal on procedural rights it was only from the end of 2009 that the EU legislation on procedural rights for suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings has progressively taken shape. This was due to the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon (TFEU art. 82(2) now confer the power to adopt legislation on this issue), to article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights (providing for the right to a fair trial) and to a political “roadmap” by which, in November 2009 the Council relaunched the Commission original proposals following a step-by-step approach instead of trying to adopt comprehensive legislation as initially foreseen in 2004.

However it is more than likely that this pragmatic approach and the transition from unanimity to qualified majority voting of the EU Member States in the Council (as from the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon) has made possible the adoption in co-decision with the European Parliament of the three first legislative measures on suspects’ rights: Directive 2010/64/EU on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings; Directive 2012/13/EU on the right to information in criminal proceedings; and Directive 2013/48/EU on the right of access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings.

Building on this success, at the end of November 2013 the Commission proposed a second “package” of suspects’ rights measures, comprising: a directive on procedural safeguards for children who are suspected or accused in criminal proceedings; a recommendation on procedural safeguards for vulnerable people suspected or accused in criminal proceedings; a directive strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and of the right to be present at trial in criminal proceedings; a directive on the right to provisional legal aid for citizens suspected or accused of a crime; and a recommendation on the right to legal aid for suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings.

In 2014 the Council already reached a general approach on the proposal for a directive on procedural safeguards for children and on the directive on the presumption of innocence. On this basis the dialogue between the Council and the European Parliament (EP) is about to start and it is possible that in the coming months an agreement could be reached so that these texts could be adopted already at the EP’s “first reading” .
Last week the Council has reached (after eight months of internal negotiations!) a general approach also on the draft Directive on provisional legal aid for persons deprived of liberty in criminal proceedings and will start in the coming weeks the dialogue with the Parliament also on this text.

The coming months will then be extremely important for EU procedural rights in criminal matters even if it will not be easy to achieve the high results that the European Parliament and some Member States were expecting. In the absence of the energetic push of the former Commission Vice President Reding there is a risk that the negotiations may achieve the lowest common denominator between the Member States also due to the unwillingness of some of them to adopt any EU legislation which can create further financial and internal institutional tensions.

Legal aid : why make it simple when you can make it tricky ? Continue reading “Legal aid in criminal proceedings : will the European Parliament improve the Council’s “general approach” ?”

The European Area of Freedom Security and Justice : still.. lost in transition ?

by Emilio De Capitani

More than five years ago the Lisbon Treaty entered into force carrying along great expectations for the transformation of the EU into a Freedom Security and Justice area. However even if some progress has been made on Schengen,  asylum policies, procedural guarantees in criminal proceedings and judicial cooperation in civil matters the results are far lower than the initial expectations and of the ambitious objectives enshrined in the Stockholm Programme adopted by the European Council on December 10th 2009.

That Programme has been criticized by some member states as it was a sort of “Christmas tree”. However what the European Council adopted in June  last year is little more than a “dry bush” mainly focused on the need for …thorough reflections before adopting new EU legislation. Some commentators considered that this was a Machiavellian move of the European Council to pass the baton to the newly appointed President of the European Commission so that it could take the lead of this European policy as for any other “ordinary” policy.

A deceiving Commission..

In the following months this interpretation was confirmed by the appointment of the first Commission Vice President, in charge of the implementation of the rule of law, of the European Charter of fundamental rights and of better legislation. Moreover the creation of a specific portfolio for migration policy gave the impression of the Commission’s stronger political commitment “..to place the individual at the heart of its activities, by establishing the citizenship of the Union and by creating an area of freedom, security and justice” (European Charter Preamble)

However very soon these initial hopes had been deceived:

1 The rule of law mechanism which was suggested by the last “Barroso” Commission was soon forgotten

2 As far as the Charter is concerned the Commission has apparently been taken by surprise by the Court of Justice opinion 2/13 dealing with the EU accession to the ECHR and is still considering what to do. But the Juncker Commission also seems lost when the issue at stake is to transpose the EU Charter principles into new EU legislation. It will only take more than one year to evaluate what could be the impact of the CJEU ruling on data retention on the pending legislation such as the EU PNR, the entry-exit and the registered travel proposals (not to speak of its impact on EU legislation and agreements that are already in force..)

3 Migration and human mobility are still dealt with and financed by the same General Directorate which is in charge of internal security policy instead of being moved to social affairs policies which should have been a real holistic and individual-centred approach.

4 Last but not least the Commission’s legislative programme for 2015 is more than reticent and it appears more and more evident that for the time being most (if not all) of the Commission’s political energy will be focused on economic objectives so that the Freedom security and justice area related policies have to wait for a new season.

…but the situation between Member States is even worse..

The situation of FSJA policies is even more frustrating on the Member States side.

Not only some legislative procedures like the ones on consular protection, access to documents  or the fight against discrimination remain blocked and others including the data protection reform will require a caesarean section to come to life,  but day after day it appears clearer and clearer  that there is still a majority of member states which do not want  the modernisation of measures adopted before the Lisbon treaty (or even before the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty. This is notably the case of Germany which (as a rule)  oppose any new measure which can have a financial impact or will change the former “unbalance” of power between the Council and the European Parliament. Take the case of the recent three Commission proposals (1) repealing FSJA measures dating back to the intergovernamental period. According to German delegation even a 1998 Schengen decision on the adoption of measures to fight illegal immigration should be preserved because “None of the (current) legal instruments include a similarly comprehensive approach to fight illegal migration and immigrant smuggling.” This is appalling : would it not be wiser to urge the Commission to submit a new proposal which could better comply with the EU Treaties and with the Charter by also associating the European Parliament to this endeavour ?

This case apart it is worth noting that all the pre-Lisbon measures dealing with police cooperation and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (2) have been legally “embalmed” by art 9 of Prot.36 according to which “The legal effects of the acts of the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union adopted on the basis of the Treaty on European Union prior to the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon shall be preserved until those acts are repealed, annulled or amended in implementation of the Treaties. The same shall apply to agreements concluded between Member States on the basis of the Treaty on European Union.”

A “Transitional” period ….until when ? Continue reading “The European Area of Freedom Security and Justice : still.. lost in transition ?”

The European Union and State Secrets: a fully evolving institutional framework…in the wrong direction (2).

 By Emilio DE CAPITANI

In a passionate intervention before the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament (LIBE) on January 8 the European Ombudsman has denounced the fact that: “For the first time in its twenty year history, the European Ombudsman was denied its right under Statute to inspect an EU institution document, even under the guarantee of full confidentiality, as part of an inquiry… This power to inspect documents is fundamental to the democratic scrutiny role of the Ombudsman and acts as a guarantor of certain fundamental rights to the EU citizen.”

The case concerned Europol’s refusal to give access to a Joint Surpervisory Body (JSB) report on the implementation of the EU-US Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) Agreement (known as “SWIFT” agreement). The JSB consists of representatives of the data protection authorities of the Member States which should ensure that the storage, processing and use of the data held by Europol do not violate fundamental EU rights. To check if  Europol was correctly applying EU law the Ombusdman has asked to inspect the JSB report. ”However”,as stated by Mrs O’Reilly,”..according to Europol, the “technical modalities” agreed between the Commission and the US under Article 4(9) of the TFTP Agreement required Europol to obtain the permission of the US authorities before allowing the Ombudsman, or any other entity, any access, including an Ombudsman confidential inspection, to the record. The US authorities have refused such permission to Europol.” Reportedly the  US authorities refused this permission because the Ombudsman “need to know” requirement for having access to that classified document was not met.

Many LIBE members have considered this statement quite appalling because it allowed the US authorities to be the arbiters of whether or not the Ombudsman may exercise her statutory, democratic power to inspect the document at issue in conformity with EU law. It is worth recalling that art. 3 par. 2 of the Ombusdman statute states that : “The Community institutions and bodies shall be obliged to supply the Ombudsman with any information he has requested from them and give him access to the files concerned. Access to classified information or documents, in particular to sensitive documents within the meaning of Article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, shall be subject to compliance with the rules on security of the Community institution or body concerned.” 

To shed some light on this controversy it could be worth recalling some elements which to my opinion have not been developed during the parliamentary debate and I had the occasion to recall in a previous post …five years ago.

The “Originator’s principle” in art. 9 of Regulation 1049/01

First of all it should be noted that art. 9 of Regulation 1049/01 cited in the Ombudsman Statute is the only EU legislative basis which allows the classification of “sensitive documents” which are “..documents are documents originating from the institutions or the agencies established by them, from Member States, third countries or International Organizations, classified as ‘TRÈS SECRET/TOP SECRET’, ‘SECRET’ or ‘CONFIDENTIEL’ in accordance with the rules of the institution concerned, which protect essential interests of the European Union or of one or more of its Member States in the areas covered by Article 4(1)(a), notably public security, defense and military matters.” According to paragraph 3 of the same article “Sensitive documents shall be recorded in the register or released only with the consent of the originator.”

However, according to Regulation 1049/01 the Originator’s consent is an exception to the general rule according to which an Institution when requested for access to a document should be driven by objective criteria and not by the will of the “originator” even when the latter it is an EU Member State (see art. 4 p.4-6 of Regulation 1049/01). The only obligation foreseen by the Regulation is to establish a fair dialogue with the “originator” and the final judge will remain the Court of justice which should assess if Regulation 1049/01 principles and rules have been violated. Not surprisingly this general rule was not easy to agree with the Member States but it was chosen as it was the only possible way out to preserve the autonomy of EU law against the risk of inconsistent decisions at EU level if taken  following national standards which are still extremely diverse (think how different is the approach to transparency in Sweden or in Spain..).

Why then establish an exception in art. 9 ?

The main factor has been the Council reqyest to cover the first 2000 EU-NATO agreement  on exchange of classified information  which, like all similar international agreements was built on the “originator” principle and also because of this was challenged by the European Parliament before the Court of Justice. Mid 2001 a deal was then struck with the European Parliament which obtained that the exception of the “originator’s principle” should had been limited to the intergovernmental domains (at the time the internal and external security policies covered by art. 24 and 38 of the EU Treaty). The logic was that for these policies the Member States are mainly under the control of their national parliaments so that the European Parliament (as well as the Court of Justice) could not be considered co-responsible for violation of EU law.

On this basis the Council has progressively built an autonomous legal framework which can hardly be considered a simple implementation of Art.9 of Regulation 1049/01. Not only the Council has added another lower level of classified documents (“Restricted”) but it embodied  the “originator’s principle”. The Council latest version of these security rules is the Decision 2013/488/EU and  has been adopted  by the Council on its internal organizational powers (art. 240 TFEU) and “without prejudice to Articles 15 and 16 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and to instruments implementing them”.(eg Regulation 1049/01 and the measures protecting personal data).

Notwithstanding this “disclaimer” this Council Decision has become “de facto” an harmonizing measure as it  define the “principles” which should frame the European Union Classified Informations (EUCI). To comply with the rule of law and democratic principles these “principles” should had been adopted by the  co-legislator as foreseen by art. 15 of the TFEU (1) and by the EU Charter. But the general application of these “internal rules” derives by the fact that they should be “copy and pasted” as such in all the EU Institutions agencies and bodies “internal” security rules if the latter want to share classified informations with the Council or between them.

Also in the international negotiations the Originator’s principle has been spread in dozen of international agreements even if since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty these agreements deals with the exchange of classified information linked with  the common foreign and security policy” (art. 37 of the TEU) (2). When classified informations deals with Judicial and police cooperation in criminal matters they now require an internal legal basis as it happened  for the  Decision concluding the EU-US agreement on TFTP. The “mutual respect clause foreseen by art. 40 TEU (3) should be respected and the European Parliament approbation is required.

Quite rightly then the European Parliament Legal Service has considered that the “technical modalities” invoked by Europol to justify the refusal of access by the Ombusdman could not be considered a sound legal basis as they were simple  “implementing measures” of the TFTP agreement and have been not part of the agreement itself.

Can the Ombusdman, the European Parliament and the Court of justice be considered simple “third parties” ?

However I am less convinced of the EP Legal Service reasoning  when it justify  the EUROPOL refusal to give the Ombusdman access to the JSB report because the originator’s  principle is embodied in …the Europol internal Security Rules.

First of all I believe that in case of conflict between the Europol Security Rules (which mirror the Council Internal security rules which themselves are implementing measure of art. 9 of Regulation 1049/01) and the Ombudsman Statute the latter should  prevail as the latter it is a direct implementation of the Treaty and is of legislative nature (as it has been adopted in codecision by the European Parliament and the Council).

Secondly (and more importantly) I consider that the question as highlighted by the Ombudsman is indeed more of constitutional nature and deals with the preservation of the principle of institutional balance in an autonomous legal order as it is the European Union (see the recent Court of Justice opinion 2/13 on the EU accession to the ECHR).

Under this perspective I think that the way how the Council has implemented the art 9 of Regulation 1049/01 is creating a sort of “executive privilege” which has no  basis in the EU primary law and can which moreover is threatening the prerogatives of the other institutions.

I find also misleading (to say the least) the formula applied by the Council in the international agreements on the exchange of classified information (even if now limited to external security policy). The formula is the following : 

“The EU institutions and entities to which this Agreement applies shall be: the European Council, the Council of the European Union (hereinafter ‘the Council’), the General Secretariat of the Council, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the European External Action Service (hereinafter ‘the EEAS’) and the European Commission. For the purposes of this Agreement, these institutions and entities shall be referred to as ‘the EU’..”

How can be considered complying with the EU founding values of democracy and of the rule of law as well as with the principle of legal certainty a formula which give the right to a third country such as Russia, Georgia, Turkey,  (4)  to decide that the Ombudsman, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice are “third parties which can be forbidden from acceding to classified information” even when their access is linked with the exercise of their constitutional prerogatives? (5)

Conclusions

For all these reasons I think that the Ombudsman should had challenged the Europol refusal before the Court of justice by giving to the Luxembourg Judges the possibility to better frame the scope of the originator’s principle and of the “third party” rule in the EU law.

In the meantime it could also be possible that the Commission (and notably its Vice president of  Timmermans in charge of the Rule of law of the EU Charter) take on board the amendments to Regulation 1049/01 (and to art. 9) as voted by the European Parliament on December 2011.

Last but not least I think that also the European Parliament should take advantage of what he has learned in Ombudsman-Europol case in  the  current negotiations with the Council on the post-Lisbon  EUROPOL decision. It could be worth amending some worrying articles of the Council “general approach” (Council Doc 10033/14 of May 28 2014) . For instance art.67 of rightly makes reference to Regulation 1049/01 but art. 69 makes reference to the Council Internal Security rules instead to art. 9 of Regulation 1049/01. I think it could also be wise to examine the content of the Europol adopted and pending international agreements as the Council “general approach” foresee  that Europol International agreements “established on the basis of Decision 2009/371/JHA and agreements concluded by Europol as established by the Europol Convention before 1 January 2010 should remain in force”.

NOTES

(1)  “General principles and limits on grounds of public or private interest governing this right of access to documents shall be determined by the European Parliament and the Council, by means of regulations, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure.” (art. 15 p 3 TFEU)

(2)  See for example the 2011 agreement between the EU and Serbia on the exchange of classified information)

(3) Art 40 TEU. “The implementation of the common foreign and security policy shall not affect the application of the procedures and the extent of the powers of the institutions laid down by the Treaties for the exercise of the Union competences referred to in Articles 3 to 6 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. 

Similarly, the implementation of the policies listed in those Articles shall not affect the application of the procedures and the extent of the powers of the institutions laid down by the Treaties for the exercise of the Union competences under this Chapter.”

(4)  The third Countries with which the agreements have been concluded are :   Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland,  Israel, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine and United States of America. Agreements have also been signed with: Canada (Negotiating mandate approved by the Council  on 21.10.2003 – Under negotiation),  Turkey (Negotiated but not yet approved by the Council), Russian Federation (Agreement signed on 01.6.2010 and published  in OJ L 155, 22.6.2010, p.57. Exchange of  notes verbales following entry into force of the  Lisbon Treaty . Negotiations on  the implementing arrangements are ongoing), Albania Negotiating mandate approved by the Council  on 20.01.2014 (Under  negotiation), Georgia (Negotiating mandate approved by the Council  on 20.01.2014.Under negotiation).

(5) The fact that  the “third party rule” constitutes a guarantee for the third party to a certain extent, but it is not an absolute principle of law has been debated during the negotiations of the EU-Canada exchange of classified informations (with reference to Section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act).

TRIBUNE : “Schengen”, terrorism and security (Bertoncini / Vitorino)

by Yves Bertoncini and Antonio Vitorino (*)

The Paris attacks of January 2015 gave rise to an emotion shared by millions of Europeans, while fueling some doubts on their ability to combat terrorist threats within the “Schengen Area”, write Yves Bertoncini and António Vitorino.

1. The Schengen Agreement has resulted in a diversification of police checks, making them more effective, including those to identify terrorist threats.

The creation of the Schengen Area, which currently comprises twenty-six member countries, including twenty-two of the twenty-eight EU Member States, has led to a redeployment of national and European police checks, based on four complementary principles.

Firstly, the closure of permanent “internal” border posts within the Schengen Area, in order to avoid long and pointless queues to hundreds of thousands of Europeans who cross over every week to work, study, meet relatives and enjoy themselves – while this wait remains compulsory for those who wish to travel to or from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Ireland, Romania and the United Kingdom.

Secondly, the organisation of mobile patrols across all Schengen Area member countries, which may be conducted jointly: these checks are much more effective, particularly with regard to the fight against cross-border crime and terrorism, as they can be used to flush out wanted persons when they are not expecting it (as is the case at a border). No terrorist has ever declared his intention when crossing a border!

Thirdly, the joint management of external borders, which are ipso facto “our” borders, as those crossing them can travel to other member countries, provided that they comply with European regulations on visas and resources. These common borders are land, sea and air borders (all airports welcoming flights from non-Schengen countries). Each country is in charge of a section of these borders, and must act to combat terrorist threats as a priority, particularly when they escalate due to conflicts occurring around the EU, namely in the Middle East and the Sahel regions.

Lastly, the possibility of applying “safeguard clauses” to reestablish national border checks for a limited period of time, for example during sporting or social events, and also in the case of terrorist threats. These clauses have already been used dozens of times since 1985, under EU supervision, in order to enable governments to deal with emergency situations.

2. Terrorist threats call for the spirit of the Schengen Agreement to be furthered

The emotion aroused in the aftermath of terrorist attacks often revives a need for reassurance that can be centred around the reopening of posts at national borders, given their importance in the collective psyche. In-depth considerations, however, urge us to satisfy this need for security within the very framework of the Schengen Area, in which the spirit of cooperation and mutual trust must be fostered.

The Madrid bombings in March 2004 were perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists from Morocco and the East, with the complicity of Spanish nationals: it is through increased security at the Schengen Area’s external borders and stronger police and judicial cooperation that this terrorist attack could have been thwarted. While it is not a member of the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom was the target of bloody attacks in July 2005. These attacks were perpetrated by British nationals, one of whom was able to leave the country after crossing a national border: he was arrested in Rome, thanks to European police and judicial cooperation.

The perpetrators of the Paris attacks in January 2015 were born in France and were known to the country’s police and legal departments and/or its intelligence services. One of the men had been checked by Paris police a few days prior to the attacks and a few hours before leaving for Spain with his girlfriend, currently in hiding in Syria. In light of the information in the police’s possession, it’s equally unlikely that he would have been detained at the border between France and Spain. In hindsight, it can be noted that the surveillance of the three terrorists was insufficiently constant and effective to be able to detect their intention to attack.

It is by granting additional financial, human and legal resources to the police and justice bodies on both national and European levels that we can combat such terrorist attacks more effectively. Not by allocating these resources to controls at Schengen Area internal borders, which would result in pointless and very onerous checks of the millions of crossings that take place each month.

3. The police and judicial cooperation organised by the Schengen Agreement and the EU must be reinforced, including cooperation to combat terrorism

The Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement is made up of 141 articles, which were then integrated into community legislation. The first articles set out the rules that offer residents of member countries the possibility of freedom of movement. Most of the articles concern the organisation of police and judicial cooperation between national authorities – in which even non-member countries such as the United Kingdom may take part occasionally. “Schengen” therefore results in greater freedom and increased security, efforts intended to compensate and to balance, but which could be reassessed in light of terrorist threats.

The reinforcement of the financial and human resources allocated to member country policing and justice must come together with an improvement of the “Schengen Information System”, and the stepping up of exchanges between intelligence services, including bilateral arrangements. The creation of a European legal framework for air passenger data exchanges (known as “EU-PNR”) will improve police forces’ effectiveness – while the guarantees governing the use of personal data are reinforced in consequence.

European bodies such as Europol, Eurojust and the Frontex agency could step up their technical assistance for member countries if they were allocated more resources. They will contribute to reinforcing the quality of checks conducted in all respects of the Schengen Area, including on the basis of one-off assessment assignments that target suspected “weak links” and by heightening mutual trust between countries.

In conclusion, European cooperation with third countries in which terrorists are likely to travel must be improved – for example Turkey and North African countries – and also with the USA. A globalised movement of police and judicial cooperation must be promoted to increase Europeans’ safety, against a movement of unrealistic and ineffective focus on national borders.

An improved application of the Schengen Area’s operating rules is without doubt possible, to enable its member countries and the EU to withstand terrorist threats. Questioning these rules does not in any way impede freedom of movement, a right granted since the Rome Treaty to all EU residents, regardless of whether or not their country is a member of the Schengen Area. Yet this would make the exercise of this right much more complex and costly, while undermining the shared responsibility that Europeans require in order to dismantle terrorist networks.

(*) António Vitorino is president and Yves Bertoncini director of Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute, the EU think tank based in Paris. Vitorino is also former European Commissioner for justice and home affairs.

This Tribune of Notre Europe / Jacques DELORS Institute was also published on the HuffingtonPost.fr and on Euractiv.com.

(S. PEERS) BRINGING THE PANOPTICON HOME: THE UK JOINS THE SCHENGEN INFORMATION SYSTEM

ORIGINAL PUBLISHED ON EU LAW ANALYSIS blog

BY Steve Peers

Over two hundred years ago, British philosopher Jeremy Bentham devised the concept of the ‘Panopticon’: a prison designed so that a jailer could in principle watch any prisoner at any time. His theory was that the mere possibility of constant surveillance would induce good behaviour in prison inmates. In recent years, his idea for a panopticon has become a form of shorthand for describing developments of mass surveillance and social control.

The EU’s forays in this area began with the creation of the Schengen Information System (SIS) in the 1990s. The SIS is a well-known EU-wide database containing enormous amounts of information used by policing, immigration and criminal law authorities.

Until now, the UK has not had any access to the SIS. But this week, the EU Council finally approved the UK’s participation in the System, thereby linking the EU’s most iconic database with the intellectual home of the panopticon theory. What are the specific consequences and broader context of this decision?

Background

The main purpose of the Schengen system is to abolish internal border checks between EU Member States, as well as some associated non-EU States.  At the moment, the full Schengen rules apply to all EU Member States except the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. Those rules also apply to four associates: Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

All of the Member States are obliged ultimately to become part of the Schengen system, except for the UK and Ireland. Those two Member States negotiated an exemption in the form of a special Protocol at the time when the Schengen rules (which originated in theSchengen Convention, ie a treaty drawn up outside the EU legal order) were integrated into the EU legal system, as part of the Treaty of Amsterdam (in force 1999).

The UK and Ireland are not entirely excluded from the Schengen system. In fact, they negotiated the option to apply to join only some of the Schengen rules if they wished. Their application has to be approved by the Council, acting unanimously. The UK and Ireland essentially chose to opt in to the Schengen rules concerning policing and criminal law, including the SIS, but not the rules concerning the abolition of internal border controls and the harmonisation of rules on external borders and short-term visas.

The UK’s application to this end was approved in 2000 (see Decision here), and Ireland’s was approved in 2002 (see Decision here). But in order to apply each Decision in practice, a separate subsequent Council decision was necessary, because the Schengen system cannot be extended before extensive checks to see whether the new participant is capable of applying the rules in practice.  On that basis, most of the Schengen rules which apply to the UK have applied from the start of 2005 (see Decision, after later amendments, here). The exception is the rules on the SIS, which the UK was not then ready to apply. After spending considerable sums trying to link to the SIS, the UK gave up trying to do so, on the basis that the EU was anyway planning to replace the SIS with a second-generation system (SIS II). There’s a lot of further background detail in the House of Lords report on the UK’s intention to join the SIS (see here), on which I was a special advisor. (Note that Ireland does not apply any of the Schengen rules in practice yet).

It took ages for the EU to get SIS II up and running, and it finally accomplished this task by April 2013 (see Decision here). The UK had planned to join SIS II shortly after it became operational, but this was complicated by the process of opting out of EU criminal law and policing measures adopted before the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, and simultaneously opting back in to some of them again, on December 1st 2014 (see discussion of that process here). This included an opt back in to the SIS rules.

Once that particular piece of political theatre concluded its final act, the EU and the UK returned to the business of sorting out the UK’s opt in to SIS II in practice. This week’sdecision completed that process, giving the UK access to SIS II data starting from March 1st. The UK can actually use that data, and enter its own data into the SIS, from April 13th.

Consequences

What exactly does participation in the SIS entail? The details of the system are set out in the 2007 Decision which regulates the use of SIS II for policing and criminal law purposes. There are also separate Regulations governing the use of SIS II for immigration purposesand giving access to SIS II data for authorities which register vehicles. The former Regulation provides for the storage of ‘alerts’ on non-EU citizens who should in principle be denied a visa or banned from entry into the EU, while the latter Regulation aims to ensure that vehicles stolen from one Member State are not registered in another one. The UK participates in the latter Regulation, but not the former, since it could only have access to Schengen immigration alerts if it fully participated in the Schengen rules on the abolition of internal border controls. On current plans, this will happen when hell freezes over.

The SIS II Decision provides for sharing ‘alerts’ on five main categories of persons or things: persons wanted for arrest for surrender or extradition purposes (mainly linked to the European Arrest Warrant); missing persons; persons sought to assist with a judicial procedure; persons and objects who should be subject to discreet checks or specific checks (ie police surveillance); and objects for seizure or use as evidence in criminal proceedings. There are also rules on the exchange of supplementary information between law enforcement authorities after a ‘hit’. For instance, if the UK authorities find that a European Arrest Warrant has been issued for a specific person, they could ask for further details from the authority which issued it.

On the other hand, the SIS does not, as is sometimes thought, provide for a basis for sharing criminal records or various other categories of criminal law data, although the EU has set up some other databases or information exchange systems dealing with such other types of data. (On criminal records in particular, see my earlier blog post here). The main point of setting up the second-generation system was to extend the SIS to new Member States (although in the end a new system wasn’t actually necessary for that purpose), and to provide for new functionalities such as storing fingerprints, which will likely be put into effect in the near future.

In practice, the UK’s participation in SIS II is likely to result in the Crown Prosecution Service receiving more European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) to process, and in more efficient processing of EAWs which the UK has issued to other Member States. It will also be easier, for instance, to check on whether a car or passport stolen in the UK has ended up on the continent, or vice versa.

Broader context

As noted already, while the UK is only now joining the SIS, the System has been around for many years, and has proved to be the precursor of many EU measures in this field. Indeed, as EU surveillance measures go, the SIS turned out to be a ‘gateway drug’: the friendly puff that led inexorably to the crack den of the data retention Directive.

Of course, interferences with the right to privacy can be justified on the basis of the public interest in enforcement of criminal law and ensuring public safety – if the interference is proportionate and in accordance with the law. Compared to (for instance) the data retention Directive and the planned passenger name records system, the SIS is highly targeted, focussing only on those individuals involved in the criminal law process, or police surveillance, or banned from entry from the EU’s territory. The legitimacy of the system therefore depends upon the accuracy and legality of the personal data placed in to it, and the connected data protection rules. On this point, the EU and national data protection supervisors have reported that many data subjects do not even know about the data held on them in SIS II, and they have produced a guide to help them with accessing their data in the system.

There’s an inevitable tension between the EU’s goal to set the world’s highest data protection standards, on the one hand, while also developing multiple huge databases, information exchange systems and surveillance laws, on the other.  It’s as if the brains of the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham and the libertarian John Stuart Mill were both battling for control of the same body – forcing it to draw up plans for the Panopticon at the same time as it was storming the Bastille. If this tension manifested itself in fiction, it would probably take the form of a comedy about a vegetarian butcher, or a virgin porn star. But the need to ensure that measures to protect our security do not remove all our liberty is not a laughing matter.

 

*This blog post is linked to ongoing research on the upcoming 4th edition of EU Justice and Home Affairs Law (forthcoming, OUP).

 

Image credit: nytimes.com

Barnard & Peers: chapter 25

Posted by Steve Peers at 23:48 No comments:

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Labels: criminal law, data protection, databases, opt-outs, right to privacy, Schengen, Schengen Information System, United Kingdom

Friday, 6 February 2015

Rights, remedies and state immunity: the Court of Appeal judgment in Benkharbouche and Janah

 

Steve Peers

Yesterday’s important judgment in Benkharbouche v Sudan and Janah v Libya by the Court of Appeal raised important issues of public international law, the ECHR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and demonstrated the relationship between them in the current state of the British constitution. The case involved two domestic workers bringing employment law complaints against the respective embassies of Sudan and Libya, which responded to the complaints by claiming state immunity, based on a UK Act of Parliament (the State Immunity Act) which transposes a Council of Europe Convention on that issue.

The question is whether invoking state immunity for these employment claims amounted to a breach of human rights law, given that Article 6 of the ECHR (the right to a fair trial) guarantees access to the courts, according to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). In turn, this raised issues of EU law, given that Article 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights likewise guarantees the right to a fair trial, and some of the claims concerned EU law issues (the race discrimination and working time Directives). (Other claims, such as for ordinary wages and unfair dismissal, were not linked to EU law). The two cases didn’t concern human trafficking or modern slavery, although sometimes embassies are involved in such disputes too. But they would be relevant by analogy to such disputes, and there would also be a link to EU law in such cases, since there is an EU Directive banning human trafficking, which the UK has opted in to.

The Court of Appeal, essentially following the prior judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, made a careful study of recent ECtHR case law, concluding that state immunity could no longer be invoked against all employment law claims, but only against those claims concerning core embassy staff. This could not apply to domestic workers; Ms. Janah’s tasks did not involve (for instance) shooting any British policewomen.

But what was the remedy for this breach of human rights principles? At lower levels, the tribunals had been powerless to rule on the claims for breach of the ECHR, since the UK’sHuman Rights Act awards the power to issue a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ that an Act of Parliament breaches the ECHR to higher courts only. So the Court of Appeal was the first court that could issue such a declaration, and it did so in this case. (The Court concluded that it could not ‘read down’ the relevant clauses in the State Immunity Act to interpret them consistently with the ECHR).

However, as compared to the effect of EU law, even a declaration of incompatibility with the ECHR is relatively weak, given that the potential remedy for a breach of EU law is the disapplication of national law, even Acts of Parliament if necessary, by the national courts. So the Court of Appeal also ruled that the relevant provisions of the State Immunity Acthad to be disapplied, to the extent that they were applied as a barrier to the claims based on EU law. On this point, the Court was following the Employment Appeal Tribunal, which had also ruled to disapply the Act, given that any level of national court or tribunal has the power to disapply an act of parliament if necessary to give effect to EU law.

If I had a pound for every law student who has confused the remedies in UK law for the breach of EU law with the remedies for the breach of the ECHR, I would be very rich indeed. Fortunately, the facts of this case easily demonstrate the distinction between them. Only the higher courts could even contemplate issuing a declaration of incompatibility with the ECHR; and the remedy of disapplication of the Act of Parliament is obviously stronger than the declaration of incompatibility, allowing the case to proceed on the merits (as far as it relates to EU law) rather than having to wait for Parliament to change the law in order to do so. And equally, the case shows the importance of the requirement that a case has to be linked to EU law in order for the Charter to apply: only the race discrimination and working time claims benefit from the disapplication of provisions of the Act of Parliament, and so only those claims can proceed to court as things stand.

From an EU law perspective, the most interesting point examined by the Court of Appeal was the application of the ‘horizontal direct effect’ of Charter rights, ie the application of EU law against private parties (since non-EU States aren’t bound by EU law as States, the court assimilated them to private parties). In its judgment last year in AMS (discussedhere), the CJEU distinguished between those Charter rights which could give rise to a challenge against national law based on the principle of supremacy of EU law, and those Charter rights which could not, since they were too imprecise to base a free-standing Charter claim upon. The right to non-discrimination on grounds of age fell within the former category, whereas the right of workers to be consulted and informed fell within the latter category. (Note that the CJEU case law classifies this as an application of the principle of supremacy, not horizontal direct effect, although the final outcome is the same no matter how the principle is classified, at least in cases like these).

The Court of Appeal reaches the conclusion that Article 47 of the Charter is also a provision which is precise enough to be used to challenge national legislation. That’s an important point, since Article 47 is a far-reaching and frequently invoked provision, and applies not just to state immunity issues but to many broader issues concerning access to the courts (including legal aid) and effective remedies.  For that reason, this judgment is an important precedent for national courts across the European Union faced with challenges to national laws based on Article 47 of the Charter, although of course it doesn’t formally bind any court besides the lower courts of England and Wales.

The Court didn’t need to rule on whether the substantive Charter rights raised by these cases would have the effect of disapplying national law, since it wasn’t ruling on the merits of the cases, but only on the issue of access to court. If it were ruling on the substantive issues, it would seem obvious that race discrimination claims have the same strong legal effect as age discrimination claims, as both claims are based on the same provision of the Charter (Article 21). However, claims based on breach of Article 31 of the Charter (the working time provision) might not have that strong legal effect. Indeed, an Advocate-General’s opinion in the pending case of Fennoll has concluded as much.

Furthermore, the social rights in the Charter (such as the rights set out in Article 31) are subject to a special rule in the Protocol to the EU Treaties which attempts to limit the effect of the Charter in the UK and Poland. The CJEU ruled in its NS judgment that this Protocol does not generally disapply the Charter in the UK, but it did not then rule if the Protocol might nonetheless affect the enforceability of social rights. Given that yesterday’s judgment was about Article 47 of the Charter, not about a substantive social right, it was not necessary for the Court of Appeal to grasp this nettle either.

 

Barnard & Peers: chapter 9, chapter 20

Videosurveillance and privacy in a transatlantic perspective

by Fiammetta Berardo (1)

The following article aims at illustrating how the creation of “societies under surveillance”, whose instruments reshape all people’s life, had started well before September the 11th. For instance within the USA in 1978 an investigation on the privacy violations committed in the course of foreign intelligence surveillance programmes had been leading to the adoption of a special law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA. The attacks to the Twin Towers have been offering the context and the casualty for an improvement in quality and intensity. For some political forces or for some economic actors this was an extraordinary opportunity to further develop programmes, ideas (for instance John Ashcroft’s projects previous to September the 11th) or already existing technologies in the field of mass surveillance.

Introduction

Videosurveillance and other surveillance techniques are now used as a tool in the fight against international terrorism worldwide. In Europe measures used in the fight against terrorism that interfere with privacy (in particular body searches, house searches, bugging, telephone tapping, surveillance of correspondence and use of undercover agents) must be provided for by law. But it must be possible to challenge the lawfulness of these measures before a Court.

For instance, with regard to wiretapping, it must be done in conformity with the provisions of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, notably it must be done in accordance with the law. The adoption of such tools has then to be balanced with the right to privacy. The author tries to sum up the main privacy concerns surveillance techniques and mainly videosurveillance do raise in order to question whether the adoption of these tools in the fight against international terrorism has been challenging such a fundamental right.

Videosurveillance in the United States of America as a response to international terrorism Continue reading “Videosurveillance and privacy in a transatlantic perspective”

“Lisbonisation” of Europol and Eurojust : an in depth analysis for the European Parliament

The inter-agency cooperation and future architecture of the EU criminal justice and law enforcement area

Upon request by the LIBE Committee, the study aims at analysing the current relationship and foreseeable cooperation between several EU agencies and bodies: Europol, Eurojust, the European Anti-Fraud Office, the European Judicial Network and the future European Public Prosecutor’s Office. The study reflects on their cooperation regarding the fight against serious transnational crime and the protection of the European Union’s financial interests. It also identifies good practices and difficulties and suggests possible ways of improvements. AUTHORS Prof. Anne Weyemberg, Université Libre de Bruxelles and Coordinator of the European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN) Mrs Inés Armada, PhD researcher, VUB-ULB, FWO Fellow Mrs Chloé Brière, GEM PhD researcher, ULB – UNIGE

BELOW THE TEXT OF PAGES 8-26. THE FULL STUDY  IS AVAILABLE HERE 

  1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Context of the study

For the time being, there are 9 JHA decentralised agencies: 6 depending from DG Home, namely EUROPOL, CEPOL, FRONTEX, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and the EU Agency for large-scale IT systems (Eu-LISA) and 3 depending from DG Justice, namely Eurojust, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).

Besides the agencies, some other EU bodies/networks, which do not have the agency status, are to be mentioned, such as the EU Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European judicial network (EJN) or the European judicial training network (EJTN). Others are yet to be established, the main one on its way being the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).

Complementarity, consistency and a good articulation between all these bodies is crucial if the purpose is to establish a consistent Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) and effectively implement its three components. A good articulation between the EU bodies is also crucial to develop a multidisciplinary approach in the fight against serious cross-border crime.

This need has been repeatedly underlined, particularly by EU institutions1. A better delineation or a clearer definition of each EU agency/body’s competences and functions has been requested. Overlaps are however inevitable (i.e., grey zones) and may even present advantages. The key issue lies in learning how to manage them in good will and good faith. The key word here must be complementarity, which implies working hand in hand for the realisation of common goals, respect of respective mandates and expertise and good communication and coordination in case of overlap. Establishing such complementarity might prove a difficult task, and this for different reasons:

– The different agencies and bodies have been established at different times, in different contexts and in various decisional frameworks. The current agencies/bodies belong to different generations and are more or less mature, the three oldest being OLAF (ex-UCLAF), Europol and the EJN. Some of them are still under the pressure of figures, still fighting/struggling or feeling they have to fight/struggle to justify their existence and prove their added-value.

– The different agencies and bodies are driven/marked by different philosophies/natures/logics: for instance, OLAF has an EC nature, with real « autonomous »/supranational administrative powers, whereas Europol and Eurojust are still marked by the « intergovernmental third pillar spirit » and constitute « service providers » depending on the final decision taken by national authorities;

– They are also marked by differences in professional cultures, be it administrative, police, or judicial;

– Their structure differs (e.g. very different organisation/structure within Europol and Eurojust);

– The resources/means available to each of them are different. Some agencies/bodies are more powerful than others, including in the field of policy orientation. For instance, the major role played by Europol in the design of the EU Internal Security Strategy (ISS) and in the EU policy cycle must be mentioned.

– The articulation between the EU agencies/bodies must accommodate the differences between the different national criminal justice systems. These include the different distribution of competences/tasks between the administrative/criminal, police/justice and police/intelligence services. The treaty imposes respect to such differences, with the result that the EU agencies/bodies must be able to adapt to all the concerned systems. Thus, there is a need to remain vague in the definition of mandates/tasks and to safeguard flexibility. Such vagueness might however make more difficult a good articulation and relationship between the bodies concerned.

– The abovementioned difficulties result in a lack of a consistent vision of the EU area of criminal justice, which is somehow to be built/organised a posteriori. The fact that the different EU agencies/bodies are dealt with by different DGs within the Commission (that do not always entertain the best relations) and the silo approach taken by the General Secretariat of the Council2 clearly do not improve the situation.

– Against this background, the legislative instruments governing each EU agency/body remain quite vague with regard to cooperation with counterparts. Interagency relations are thus mostly left to the EU agencies/bodies themselves.

– Last but not least, the importance of personal relations must be stressed. Sometimes people understand each other and sometimes they do not…

Generally speaking, an improvement in the relations between the EU agencies/bodies has been witnessed, due to the conclusion/revision of bilateral agreements/memorandum of understandings and to the passage of time and the consequent gain of experience.

Such improvement is also due to other reasons such as the creation of coordination/monitoring mechanisms and the encouragement of inter-agency cooperation in the JHA field.

It has especially taken the form of the JHA contact group and the JHA Heads of Agencies meetings. They annually report to the Standing Committee on operational cooperation on internal security (COSI)3, notably through a scorecard on cooperation, which is annexed to the annual report.

However, and in spite of a lot of quite positive official declarations, difficulties remain. Identifying them is the main purpose of this study, in order to suggest, where possible, ways of improvement. Continue reading ““Lisbonisation” of Europol and Eurojust : an in depth analysis for the European Parliament”