The ambassadors of the Member States to the European Union adopted, on Wednesday 30 June, their mandate to review the powers of the police cooperation agency, Europol, and to bring it more in line with the operational needs of national authorities, as requested by the European Commission in December (see EUROPE 12619/14). They are therefore in a position to start negotiations with the European Parliament.
On 8 June, the Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council had indicated in a progress report that it was close to an agreement on a mandate, but had to resolve several issues such as the refusal of national authorities to give Europol the possibility to enter, itself, alerts into the Schengen Information System (SIS) concerning third country nationals, as suggested by the Commission (see EUROPE 12734/14).
On this point, the last compromise text adopted states that “in the framework of its mandate and its task of supporting Member States in preventing and combating serious crime and terrorism, Europol should assist Member States in processing data from third countries and international organisations by proposing the possible introduction by Member States of a new category of information reported in the interest of the Union in the SIS”. Member States would be kept regularly informed of these proposals and possibly of the information entered into the SIS, but the criteria under which Europol will decide whether to propose these new alerts will still have to be defined at the level of the agency’s Management Board.
The mandate also defines the ways in which Europol will process the data received, according to different categories and circumstances. Links to analyse the data are also made with the data used by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in its investigations.
Europol may also transfer data to third countries or third parties with which there is no agreement or adequacy decision on the protection of personal data, but under very limited conditions and on the basis of a legal instrument guaranteeing the protection of such data.
“In order to ensure that Member States can effectively prevent the dissemination of terrorist content online, including in real time, Europol should be able to exchange personal data with private parties, including IP addresses or URLs linked to such content, necessary to assist Member States in preventing the dissemination of such content, in particular where such content is aimed at or has the effect of seriously intimidating a population and where there is an anticipated potential for exponential multiplication and virality across multiple online service providers”, the mandate also states.
Link to the mandate: https://bit.ly/2TlGd3Q (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)