In a document presented on Thursday 3 December, the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament proposes strengthening the powers of Europol, the police cooperation agency, by giving it the right of initiative. In addition, the European Commission will present a counter-terrorism plan on 9 December, which will include a new remit for Europol.
The centre-right group wants to strengthen the agency’s ability to act in areas such as cybercrime and counter-terrorism coordination. It also wants to turn Europol into an Innovation Laboratory.
Member States indicated in October that they were not in favour of reversing jurisdictions, preferring to keep Europol as an operational tool for them to use (see EUROPE 12587/9). The Renew Europe group, on the other hand, believes that “Europol should be properly equipped to carry out its principal mission”.
The political group wants to upgrade Europol’s mandate into new areas, including tackling radicalisation in the EU and coordinating the response to terrorist attacks. Europol should also be given the right “to conduct and coordinate cross-border investigations on its own initiative”, it adds.
Europol can no longer “depend on the willingness of Member States to share information or act”, the document says. The agency should therefore have a right of initiative to start new investigations, carry out law enforcement activities in and with Member States, and engage proactively in and handle cases on its own.
These investigations would only be initiated if an illegal activity has a cross-border dimension and only for categories of crimes recognised throughout the EU.
Renew Europe also believes that there is a need “to reinforce mutual trust”. Member States should therefore be obliged to populate Europol’s databases and the European Information System (EIS) with targeted information and knowledge. Moreover, the report says that the participation of Member States should be more systematic and codified so that robust European databases can be created to support investigations in Member States.
The position paper can be found at: https://bit.ly/3g630Ym (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)