Brussels, 11/02/2010 (Agence Europe) - The European Union will soon have a new body to ensure cooperation on internal security. On Wednesday 10 February, member states' permanent representatives to the EU adopted a decision setting up the Standing Committee on operational cooperation on internal security (COSI). COSI, a Council committee to be based in Brussels, will officially come into being at the end of the month, immediately after the definitive approval of European home affairs ministers, who are due to meet on 25 February, has been granted.
COSI's main task will be to facilitate, promote and strengthen coordination of operational activities between EU member states in the field of internal security. This coordination role will concern, among other things, police and customs cooperation, external border protection and judicial cooperation in criminal matters relevant to operational cooperation in the field of internal security. COSI will also be responsible for evaluating the general direction and efficiency of operational cooperation with the goal to identify possible shortcomings and adopt recommendations to address them. It will also be able to invite representatives from EUROJUST, EUROPOL, FRONTEX and other relevant bodies to its meetings and is supposed to help ensure consistency of action by these bodies. COSI will also be mandated - along with the Political and Security Committee (PSC) - to assist the Council in accordance with the so-called Solidarity clause (Article 222 TFEU), which states that the EU “shall mobilise all the instruments at its disposal” to help a member state that is the object of a terrorist attack or the victim of a natural or man-made disaster. However, COSI will neither be involved in preparing legislative acts nor in conducting operations. Neither will it replace the Article 36 Committee (CATS) or the Strategic Committee on Immigration, Frontiers and Asylum (SCIFA), the work of which will be re-evaluated by COREPER before 1 January 2012. Members of COSI will come from each country's national administration, but the number of delegates will be limited in order to ensure the efficiency of its work. COSI delegates will be supported by member states' permanent representations to the EU in Brussels and the Council Secretariat. The committee will regularly report on its activities to the Council which, in return, will keep the EP and national parliaments informed.
The main COSI priorities will be the development, management and implementation of the European Internal Security Strategy, which is also due to be adopted at the Justice and Home Affairs Council at the end of February. The committee may also be given other tasks: French Home Affairs Minister Brice Hortefeux, for example, suggested in December that the implementation of a European anti-drug pact might provide an “operational test” for COSI (see EUROPE 10038). (B.C./transl.rt)