Brussels, 31/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's civil liberties committee has decided on its negotiating position on the new rules for the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), which EU countries use to exchange information on the criminal convictions of EU citizens, and which the committee wants to be extended to include non-EU nationals,
MEPs also want the system to be used to check the criminal records of people seeking to work with children.
The EP's committee backed the European Commission's proposal published on 19 January against the backdrop of the fight against terrorism to extend ECRIS to include information about non-EU nationals (see EUROPE 11471). 'We need to restore public confidence that we are able to monitor who comes into the EU, and to find people who could represent a threat. Checking people against our existing criminal records databases, and making exchanging that information much easier, will go a long way towards showing that we can find those people who mean us harm, amongst the vast majority who do not,' said Parliament's lead MEP on the file Timothy Kirkhope (ECR, UK).
MEPs also stress that member states should be able to use the ECRIS system to pass on information relating to terrorist offences or serious crime received bilaterally from a third country. Furthermore, they want the EU's police cooperation agency Europol and border agency Frontex to be able to access the database, upon request and case by case, to perform their tasks. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)