EU Home Affairs Ministers, meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday 8 June, will, for lack of progress, take stock of the state of play on a range of legislation with different levels of advancement.
This is the case for the reform of Europol, the new rules on the resilience of critical entities and, of course, the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’, for which a very brief debate is planned, but which could nevertheless give rise to further discussion on the same day.
In terms of the agenda, the Presidency plans to start the meeting with a debate on the impact of Covid-19 on organised crime, as the police cooperation agency has repeatedly expressed concern about the increase in internet crime in 2020, including trafficking in fake tests, as well as an increase in child pornography. The ministers will also discuss how artificial intelligence enhances the EU’s internal security.
They will then have a first exchange of views on the Commission’s new Schengen Area Strategy (see EUROPE 12732/7): the proposals are fairly consensual for the Member States, with some delegations having already indicated that they are pursuing the right objective by aiming to strengthen Schengen’s external borders, reinforce police cooperation between Member States, and better assess deficiencies on the ground.
But “the re-establishment of internal border measures must remain a national competence, and no one wants to give that up”, a diplomat said on Thursday 3 June, as the Commission plans to propose a revision of the Schengen Borders Code later this year.
Finally, the Ministers will take note of the state of play of the revision of Europol’s mandate, presented in December, the Directive on critical entities and, finally, the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ (see EUROPE 12732/8).
On this last point, the positions of the Member States remain almost unchanged, confirmed this diplomat, divided between those Member States opposed to solidarity and those who want solidarity but do not want to accept new responsibilities at the external borders.
“The only point of convergence is the external dimension of migration”, the source noted. On Tuesday at lunchtime, the ministers will discuss partnerships with third countries, including those in North Africa, during which they may also discuss the ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ again, although on Friday no one was expecting a substantive discussion on this reform package.
Europol reform. The Portuguese Presidency believes it has made significant progress on the reform of Europol and hopes to obtain a further (partial) mandate to start discussions with the European Parliament, it explains in its progress report seen by EUROPE.
The aim of the proposal is to strengthen Europol’s mandate to improve its cooperation with private parties and third countries, clarify the possibility of dealing with large and complex data sets or strengthen its role in the field of research and innovation (see EUROPE 12665/12). The proposal also aims to strengthen cooperation between Europol and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, to give it the possibility to open a criminal investigation in a Member State or to make data from third countries available in the Schengen Information System (SIS).
The Presidency closed many chapters, such as the one on cooperation with private parties and third countries or the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. On the processing of a large amount of data, there are still technical difficulties but this could be solved by the end of June.
Member States are opposed to the idea of Europol entering its own alerts into the SIS system. The second compromise on the table is to allow Europol to help check and analyse information given by a third country before possibly proposing to enter it into the SIS. But the Member States are still discussing this formula.
On cooperation with third countries, data transfers should take place if there are binding frameworks with these countries on the protection of the data exchanged.
The Member States also rejected the possibility given by the Commission to Europol to launch criminal investigations in one Member State only. Such an initiative could take place if at least two Member States are concerned.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/34JD93E
Critical Entities. The Portuguese Presidency’s progress report notes that the reform of EU rules governing critical entities is moving slowly (see EUROPE 12624/2).
Several Member States have raised doubts about the legal basis (internal market) of this proposal, which aims to strengthen the resilience of critical entities to any type of threat (terrorist, pandemic, etc.). They stressed the need to respect national prerogatives in this area and asked questions about the interaction of the future directive with the Directive on Security of Network and Information (NIS2).
The questions raised by the Member States concern the content of the strategies and risk assessments they have to develop, the process of identifying critical entities (some Member States have a problem with the abandonment of the term ‘critical infrastructure’), the resilience measures to be adopted and the handling and communication of sensitive information.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/3if2Y3l (original version in French by Solenn Paulic)