Brussels, 08/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - In a debate on Tuesday, MEPs on the European Parliament's civil liberties committee (LIBE) expressed doubts about the merger of the European Police College (Cepol) with the European Police Cooperation Agency (Europol). The European Commission proposed this merger in March with the aim of making a number of savings. It has met with opposition from the heads of the two agencies, however.
On 27 March, the Commission proposed to make Europol more efficient in relation to national law enforcement services and proposed its merger with Cepol, which is responsible for training police personnel in the EU, to help to improve the link between “training and operational support”, as the Commission explained at the time. The operation, however, is also expected to help make EU budget savings of a little over €17 million over the 2015-2020 period. Cepol's current annual budget is €8 million.
On Tuesday, MEPs reiterated their opposition to this initiative and said that current cooperation between these two agencies is rather “good” and effective. They also underlined the need to protect the two agencies' respective independence, given the nature of their activities, explained a press release.
Rapporteur Agustin Diaz de Mera (EPP, Spain) said that he is “not totally in favour of this merger” and would like to examine other possible solutions. Some MEPs, such as Josef Weidenholzer (S&D, Austria), said that this merger could possibly be envisaged in the future but “not now”.
Europol director, Rob Wainwright, pointed out that the agency's offices in The Hague were not appropriately adapted to accommodate this merger and Ferenc Banfi, the head of Cepol, said that he was particularly concerned about a cut in funding for training, which could damage the EU's long-term security. (SP/transl.fl)