Ordered European Summit. Has the reader read the text in full of the "conclusions" of the evening of the extraordinary European Summit of 21 September? You must do so (Agence EUROPE placed them at the disposal of all its subscribers in its special edition of 22 September). Beyond the general guidelines on which we commented in this section of 25 September, some significant points deserve being underpinned.
1. The European Council strengthened its terminology calling on ministerial Councils to take this or that decision. Instead of generic terminology like "urges" or "recommends", the Heads of Government once uses the verb "directs", and once "instructs", and in French "instruit" (or in Italian "incarica"; which seems weaker), which doubtless has all the significance of "provide instruction to" (even though this meaning is not taken up in several dictionaries). The invitation would thus take on a binding nature and be compulsory for the Council it is addressed to. The terms are used twice in the Summit's Conclusions: the European Council "signifies its agreement to the introduction of a European arrest warrant", and "directs" the Justice and Home Affairs Council to "flesh out" that agreement (which is therefore taken for granted), and sets 6 and 7 December at latest for the determination of the relevant arrangements. Then, it instructs the same Council to implement as quickly as possible the entire package of measures decided at Tampere. Suffice it to re-read this package to understand what acceleration would result for the creation of a European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. And that's an order.
2. The Heads of Government call for a "common list of terrorist organisations" and the creation, within six months, of a specialist anti-terrorist team within Europol. Such work involves co-operation between the Fifteen which, in this field, does not as yet exist.
Finally, serious financial measures. 3. The Council radically intensified EU measures against money laundering and against tax havens, and in favour of the possibility of freezing terrorist assets. This is fundamental as terrorism needs considerable capital, and as we stand may use financial channels in close to total impunity. The Summit decided:
- on the adoption "in the weeks to come" of the draft that will extend the "Money Laundering" directive, current applicable to drugs money. The invitation is especially targeted at Parliament - to which the Summit may not give formal instructions - which has blocked the draft because it wants to exclude lawyers from the list of professions targeted by the directive; for those who may not have understood, European Council President Guy Verhofstadt told Friday evening's press conference that MEPs should cease allowing themselves to be influenced by the pressure of lobbies. For his part, Italian Minister Del Turco said that, as far as he knew, there were no cases of "criminal" money laundering in which lawyers were not involved (see, however, yesterday's bulletin, p.10, for the response of the EP rapporteur, Mr. Lehne);
- on the adoption of measures regarding terrorists and "non co-operative" jurisdictions identified by the Financial Action Group on Money Laundering, the group the OSCE set up and which updates the list of "tax havens" in the world. It is an effective instrument, as the fact alone of being on the list serious disturbs the countries and territories concerned that may be penalised and are doing their best to get off it; the Group lays down its conditions, in a sort of permanent negotiation. The decision of the European Council should speed up and strengthen the transparency of financial transactions made in tax havens;
- on the adoption "in the weeks to come" of the framework-decision on the freezing of the assets of people involved in organised crime or terrorism. It was proposed by France, Belgium and Sweden (in the field of Justice/Home Affairs, we know, the Commission does not have the monopoly on the right of initiative) to introduce the reciprocal implementation of measures taken by a Member State in this field. As we stand, there is no Community instrument; Member States logically have the possibility of deciding national measures on the freezing of assets, and its generalisation at European level is necessary for it to be effective. The proposal of these three aforementioned governments was not aimed at terrorism, it was the Commission that proposed citing it explicitly. A consensus was already forming between the Fifteen; but given the usual slow pace of things, the impetus provided by the Heads of Government is precious.
4. Support for terrorism is now one of the criteria that will be "systematically" taken into consideration in assessing EU relations with third countries. It's a move that will carry weight in several cases (Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, etc.). (F.R.)