Brussels, 15/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Commission intends to fine-tune its existing instruments and correct any shortcomings but does not intend to introduce any new legislative texts yet, except those in the future “Internal Security Agenda” planned for 2015. The European Commission subsequently advocates a cautious approach, following the attacks perpetrated in Paris between 7-9 January.
This is also the orientation that member states appear to be following and their representatives are meeting up on Friday 16 January at an experts' level. This meeting has been planned to help prepare the informal JHA Council (29 and 30 January in Riga), which is not expected to focus on the identification of new measures but rather, the consolidation and strengthening of existing rules, particularly cooperation between intelligence services and agencies such as Europol and the use of the Schengen Information System
The member states will also be keen to convince the European Parliament of the need to resume its work on the European PNR system. At the beginning of the week, the Polish president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, exerted personal pressure on MEPs to withdraw their blockage on the matter. He believes that if a robust response is lacking, the Schengen area of free movement could be threatened. European Parliament President, Martin Schulz, promised to do everything in his power to unblock this project, which was presented in February 2011. The rapporteur on this dossier, Timothy Kirkhope (ECR, United Kingdom), is also attempting to bring the members from the civil liberties committee to the table and will outline his plans next week.
The ALDE group is in an uncomfortable position, as is the S&D, which is divided. It has always rejected the 2011 proposal because it did not contain serious guarantees on the protection of private life and has called on the Commission to come back with a new proposal. Far from opposing the opportunity of introducing a PNR directive, the Liberals are calling for, “the new proposal and appropriate legislative framework, with the necessary legal guarantees, to reflect recent case law”, explained Sophie in 't Veld, who believes that, “the Council ought to adopt the directive on data protection as soon as possible”. The Commission, however, rejected this request again on Thursday 15 January and explained that it did not intend to amend its text and that it would be up to the European Parliament to bring the necessary amendments itself. The Council has already adopted its position, with the addition of the draft directive being able to include the possibility of targeting sensitive intra-European flights. Although the EPP believes that the PNR directive appears to be crucial, it does not, however, believe that it is the panacea in the fight against terrorism in the EU. In Strasbourg, several members of the group said that the PNR was the most important dossier at a European level but that this, “is not sufficient, for example, when terrorists travel with false papers”, explained one French MEP. Other EPP members said, “there is not a lot that can be done at European level and things should not necessarily be added to in Brussels”. On the other hand, in addition to the PNR, cooperation between member states and better use of instruments are possible.
Improving use of SIS2?
The second generation (SIS2) of the Schengen Information System has just been updated. Arnaud Danjean (EPP, France) claimed that “experts are saying that the SIS database has poor intelligence”. This database identifies alerts issued by member states on stolen objects or suspects. The Commission believes that overall, the SIS system is functioning well but that not everyone is using it in the optimum way. Therefore although they already have the possibility, explained certain sources, not all member states are consulting the SIS at the airport when travellers return to the EU. They say that this is either because of laziness or technical problems. The Schengen Border Code currently allows member states to carry out extremely robust inspections of travellers coming back from specific destinations (Istanbul, for example) or target particular individuals. There is not, however, any real harmonised practices in this area and this is indeed the area that ministers for home affairs decided to open several months ago. They want the controls to be more “systematic” and far-reaching, going beyond simple passport checks of European nationals coming back to the EU, irrespective of the point of entry.
Other possibilities for improving information exchange between intelligence services are currently organised around the 'Intcen' at the EEAS and improved analysis. A group of experts has been set up to counter jihadi propaganda. Similar teams have been set up at Europol and are in charge of areas such as monitoring radicalisation movements on the Internet. The EU also has a radicalisation prevention network, the RAN, launched in 2011. As for the question of funding terrorism, the EU launched a project with the respective national treasuries, given that it did not have a terrorism financing follow-up programme, such as the one that already exists between the EU and US (the option for such a European kind of system was ruled out in 2013). Even on this question, however, difficulties still persist: some suspects can transfer small amounts of money and subsequently avoid creating any suspicion. (SP, CG and JK)