On 30 April, the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council proposed deleting almost all of the content of the new regulation proposed by the Commission in late 2023 to strengthen the powers of the police cooperation agency, Europol (see EUROPE 13302/11), in combating human trafficking, as reported by Statewatch on Friday 10 May.
In its so-called ‘facilitators’’ package, designed to tighten the legal framework against migrant smugglers, the Commission proposed a new directive and a new regulation to strengthen Europol’s role and inter-agency cooperation in the fight against migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings.
In particular, the regulation strengthened the obligation of Member States to share information with Europol and its European Migrant Smuggling Centre; it also gave the agency the capacity to deploy more officers on the ground to combat people smugglers, including in third countries.
“The revised proposal aims to address drafting solutions to the three building blocks that received most support by the Member States. Namely the strengthening of information exchange, the inter-agency cooperation and the voluntary establishment of reserve pool of Member States’ experts for the purpose of Europol deployments for operational support”, says the 30 April document.
“At the same time, the Presidency follows up on the issues expressed by a majority of Member States with regard to a separate proposal to establish the Migrant Smuggling Centre and suggests to delete the entire new Regulation and only keep a minimal addition to [...] the Europol Regulation”.
The Presidency has also modified the arrangements for the creation of new operational task forces, which will remain in the hands of the Member States rather than the Executive Director of Europol.
No additional staff or funding will be provided. The text also relaxes the obligations on Member States to provide information to Europol, except in the context of an operational task force.
According to one source, who confirms this direction, the Member States have pointed to the fact that a Migrant Smuggling Centre already exists and have questioned the need for this regulation, believing that much can already be done under the current mandate.
Link to the compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/c63 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)