Brussels, 27/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - Thursday's Justice and Home Affairs Council led to progress being made on the creation of Eurojust, but little on the issue of family reunion, and saw the adoption of the proposal of the Presidency on the disappearance and sexual exploitation of children (see other article). The Fifteen also adopted an important decision late afternoon on broadening Europol's mandate and discussed ways of modifying the Convention. We shall return to this decision tomorrow, as well as to talks on the method to use to examine the procedure for the granting or withdrawal of the status of refugee. For Eurojust, as for most of these subjects, the key date will be 6 and 7 December; it is at that Council that these decisions should be adopted, as well as those on the European arrest warrant and on the framework-decision on terrorism.
The Council began in the morning with a discussion on measures taken or to take against terrorism, which was not scheduled on the agenda. The Presidency presented a detailed scoreboard, to which will shall return tomorrow. Over lunch, ministers turned to the security of European meetings, by, notably, discussing an Italian and German proposal of setting up joint police teams.