EU co-legislators are expected to reach agreement on Thursday 25 September on a new regulation giving Europol greater powers in the fight against smuggling networks (see EUROPE 13644/10).
While negotiations are still making slow progress in the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties on the directive proposed on the same subject at the end of 2023 (see EUROPE 13302/11), even if a vote on the mandate could be taken in October, this new trilogue meeting should be the right one for the 'Europol' section, several sources told Agence Europe on Wednesday 24 September.
However, on the eve of this trilogue meeting, one point remained to be resolved, namely aspects relating to the agency’s human resources and budgetary capacities, with regard to the potential transformation of the contracts of more than 90 Europol staff.
It did not, however, seem likely to cause an agreement to fail, but this last point raises the question of a possible budgetary risk that would weigh on the agency’s accounts at the end of the year.
According to the information contained in a ‘four-column’ table, seen by Agence Europe, the scope of the new regulation has been scaled back overall.
In terms of form, for example, there is no longer any question of an independent regulation: the Council of the EU and the European Parliament have simply maintained the elements of the Commission’s original proposal, which could be integrated into the current Europol regulation.
Basically, unlike the establishment of liaison officers, the new rules no longer provide for Europol agents to be deployed in third countries to combat smugglers. These deployments will be authorised in the Member States under certain conditions, for the purposes of participating in investigations.
The latest compromise also provides for more systematic transfers of information to Europol. It stipulates that “Europol staff may provide operational support to the competent authorities of the Member States during the execution of investigative measures by those authorities, at their request and in accordance with their national law, in particular by facilitating cross-border information exchange and other forms of data processing, by providing analytical, operational, technical and forensic support, and by being present during the execution of those measures”.
However, “Europol staff shall not, themselves, have the power to execute investigative measures themselves”.
The text also creates a new specialised centre to combat people smugglers.
Another sensitive point was the creation of OTF (“operational task force”), which will only be fully codified as part of the wider reform of Europol, expected in 2026.
The European Parliament was concerned that this regulation would already have achieved important things for Europol. The use of “operational task forces enables Member States, with the support of Europol, to conduct joint, coordinated and prioritised criminal intelligence exchange activities - which entails exchanging criminal intelligence, the discovery of links, the conducting of analysis - and investigations, notably on criminal networks and groups as well as individual criminal actors who constitute a high security risk”, states the latest compromise. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)