Brussels, 29/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - The session of the JAH Council that will unfold this Thursday 30 November and Friday 1 December has no less than 21 points included in its agenda. On this copious menu are added, moreover, a session, Friday afternoon, of the Mixed Committee with Iceland and Norway. Thursday - the Council will start at 10am - will be dedicated to dossiers stemming from the competence of the Justice Ministers. At the end of the afternoon, the dossiers dealt with by both it and their colleagues for Home Affairs will be broached. EUROPE will return tomorrow to the dossiers that will be submitted to the latter on Friday as well as to the points in the agenda of the Mixed Committee. Below is a succinct presentation of the issues that will be broached by the Ministers for Justice:
- Judicial competence, recognition and execution of decisions in terms of civil and commercial matters. Unless due to an accident, the Council should be able to mark its political assent on the regulation through which the European Commission intends to Communitarise the Brussels Convention I, as revised in May 1999. The regulation will notably ensure the protection of consumers by allowing them to start a procedure before the courts of their own country; however, taking into account the importance of the Internet on a commercial level, the Ministers should add in a Declaration that this right will only valid when a good and in due form contract has been concluded. Some countries will benefit from transitional derogations.
- Mutual recognition of decision in civil and commercial matters. The principal of mutual recognition was approved by during the European Council in Tampere that had invited the Commission and the Council to elaborate, by the end of 2000, a programme of measures to ensure its implementation. The programme of measures was submitted to the Ministers fulfils this request; it aims to improve the instruments already in place (right to visit, food credit, unchallenged credit, low importance litigation) and to create new ones (dissolution of matrimonial systems and patrimonial consequences of the separation of unmarried couples and succession, ruling in terms of parental responsibility and other non-asset aspects of the separation of couples). It will be approved by the Council even if the preparatory works have been marked by several reservations concerning the improvement of bank seizures, the establishment of measure in the field of parental responsibility, the execution of measures having an impact on the property of the debtor.
- Mutual recognition of penal decisions. The Council should mark its political assent for a programme of measures aiming to implement the principal of mutual recognition covering the following issues: - execution of pre-sentencing decision; - taking into account of final penal decisions made previously by the judge of another Member States; - decision taken in the framework of a post penal follow-up' - decision of condemnation. The programme proposes an appreciation on the priority to be given to various measures considered. It will be drawn up around the following parameters: a) general or limited scope to certain infringements of the measure considered (a certain number of implementation measures for mutual recognition can be limited to serious infringements); b) maintain the suppression of the requirement of double incrimination as a condition for recognition; c) mechanisms for the protection of rights if third parties, victims and suspects; d) definition of minimum common standards, for example in terms of jurisdictional competence; e) direct or indirect execution of the decisions as well as the definition and scope of the possible validation procedure; f) determination and scope of motives for refusal of recognition base upon sovereignty or other crucial interest of the State required; g) systems of responsibility of States in case on no event, relaxation or acquittal. According to the nature of the decisions concerned, the taking into account of such or such parameter could vary in relation to the aim sought to achieve a more or less ambitious implementation of the principal of mutual recognition, unless it proves itself necessary to adopt an autonomous measure enabling to apply this parameter to all measures.
- Right to visit children. The draft regulation relating to the mutual execution of decision will be the object of a policy debate during which the Ministers will react to the ideas contained in the initial draft, so that the Presidency may clear the way towards a compromise. This debate should cover the scope of application of this regulation, the guarantees to foresee and the cooperation to put in place.
- Network of schools for legal training. The French Presidency will present a proposal of decision on the creation of such a network.
The issues that will be jointly discussed by the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers are as follows:
- Protection of the euro. The Council Presidency will present two draft provisions to this end. They are: a) Conclusions on the role of Europol in this field; b) a draft framework-decision on the "third pillar" aspects of this issue.
- Strengthening of the penal framework concerning the repression of aid to unlawful entry and residence. The draft Directive and Framework Decision on this subject will be the subject of a policy debate that will mainly cover the following elements: i) the form that a "humanitarian clause" should take in order to allow the activities of certain humanitarian organisations to be protected without bringing into question the principle of doing away with the obligation to demonstrate a lucrative goal in order to note infringement of entry and residence or transit infringement (a principle included in the Schengen Agreements); ii) the wording of aggravating circumstances that would increase the penalty incurred concerning entry and residence aid infringements, as well as the minimum penal tariff that should be linked to this.
- Crime prevention. France and Sweden will present joint initiatives in this respect, as well as the Commission that will submit a Communication adopted the same evening.
- Scoreboard. Commissioner Antonio Vitorino will present the latest report on the setting up of the Area of Freedom, Justice and Security.
