On Monday, 23 June, the NGO Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) indicated that European Ombudsman Teresa Anjinho will investigate “the European Commission’s failure to properly assess the impact of proposed new laws against migrant smuggling”. PICUM and European Digital Rights (EDRI) had taken action together on this issue on behalf of the ‘Protect Not Surveil’ coalition, whose mission is to challenge digital surveillance in migration contexts.
In fact, the ombudsman revealed in a letter she sent to EDRI on 23 June that she had “decided to open an inquiry into the Commission’s decision not to carry out an impact assessment” for the two proposals, which were submitted in November 2023 and are currently being negotiated by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU (see EUROPE 13302/11).
They include a directive on preventing and combatting the facilitation of unauthorised entry, transit, and stay in the EU (‘Facilitation Directive’)—on which the European Parliament has yet to make a decision—and a regulation aiming to strengthen Europol’s role in the fight against migrant smuggling and human trafficking (see EUROPE 13644/10).
Trilogue negotiations for the regulation concerning Europol began on 23 June. According to the Polish Ministry of the Interior’s Undersecretary of State Maciej Duszczyk (who was passing through Brussels that same day), this regulation represents, “to be honest, a new mandate” for the EU agency for law enforcement cooperation.
EDRI reproaches co-legislators precisely for taking advantage of this regulation—officially linked to just the criminalisation of migrant smuggling—to give Europol new areas of competence in terms of resources and new ways to access data. This regulation would extend Europol’s powers to all areas of crime and not just investigations into smuggling networks. The reform would, for example, codify the operational task forces that have, in fact, already been implemented since 2018. It would also give Europol more areas of competence so that [its agents] could be deployed in third countries.
According to EDRI, the agency could also obtain more powers with regard to facial recognition software and access to DNA data.
Link to the reply: https://aeur.eu/f/hin
Link to the first four-column public table on the ‘Europol’ regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/hj1 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)