Brussels, 26/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - MEPs once again, in Strasbourg on Tuesday 25 February, made clear their opposition to the merger of the police college, CEPOL, and the EU's police cooperation body, Europol. The two agencies should not be merged as they must continue to work separately, say MEPs in a report by Agustin Diaz de Mera Garcia Consuegra (EPP, Spain) on the legislative proposal. The report was adopted by 610 votes to 37, with 28 abstentions. This is the first time, thanks to the Lisbon Treaty, that MEPs have been able to vote on the activities of Europol and they used the opportunity to emphasise that data protection provisions within the police agency need to be strengthened. They argued, too, for an ad hoc group, comprising European and national MPs, to monitor how well Europol is abiding by its obligations.
This group of elected representatives should be able to request hearings of leading figures from Europol and the Commission as well as of other key players. Among the demands set of Europol are that it should process personal data only for specific purposes; retrieval of data must be carefully restricted to only that which is necessary; and personal information must only be processed by authorised staff if the objective of the information gathering remains valid. Europol must also keep a detailed register of all hits and information accessed, and the European data protection supervisor (EDPS) should play an active role in monitoring compliance by Europol with its obligations.
In addition, Europol should be able to receive and to process personal data held by other EU bodies, non-EU countries' law enforcement authorities and international organisations only if it is strictly necessary and proportionate for the legitimate performance of its tasks, the adopted text states. The text will be taken on by the incoming European Parliament and may be reviewed if it is so decided, a Parliament press release says. (SP)