Brussels, 28/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - Justice and Home Affairs Ministers agreed on Thursday to extend the mandate of the European Police Office (Europol), but put off the adoption of the four draft Co-operation Agreements between Europol and Poland, Hungary, Estonia and Slovenia due to a objection by the French parliament. French sources suggest that it is simply a matter of time, rather than substance, since the French Parliament has to examine the proposals first. The Cooperation Agreements would allow the exchange of information between the four candidate countries and Europol. They are the first agreements to allow such operational co-operation between Europol and candidate countries.
Extension of Europol's competencies
To date, Europol has had the task of collecting, analysing and exchanging information concerning the prevention and combating of the illicit trade in drugs, nuclear and radioactive materials, clandestine immigration networks, human trafficking and trade in stolen vehicles and the fight against terrorism. The Ministers decided to add all the crimes in the Annex to the Europol Convention to this list for which Europol is not yet competent, namely;
- Attacks in life, physical integrity and freedom: Voluntary homicide, serious bodily harm, illegal trade in human organs and tissue, kidnapping, false imprisonment and hostage taking, racism and xenophobia.
- Attacks on heritage and public property and fraud: Organised theft, illicit trade in cultural goods including antiquities and works of art, fraud and swindling, racket and extorting funds, pirating and counterfeiting goods, falsifying administrative documents and selling false documents, counterfeiting currency, falsifying means of payment, cybercrime and corruption.
- Illegal trade and damage to the environment: Illicit arms, munitions and explosives trade, illegal trade in endangered animals, illegal trade of threatened plant species and essences, crime that damages the environment, illegal trade of hormones and other growth catalysts.
Europol's mandate will also be extended to cover money laundering in connection with any of the above crimes, as is the case for the crimes already covered by Europol. The Council's decision also stipulates that Ministers can decide, following a proposal from Europol's management committee, on which crimes should be dealt with as a priority. The Council's decision has not yet been formalised, but it is expected to formally endorse the decision once the Parliament has given its opinion.
The Ministers also recognised at the special JHA Council on combating terrorism last week that the Member States do not cooperate enough with Europol? They pledged to provide Europol with all the information required for it to be able to fulfil its information collection, analysis and exchange role.
List of priorities for amending Europol's Convention
The Member States also launched the process of changing Europol's role, a process laid down by the Amsterdam Treaty and the conclusions of the Tampere European Council. To this end, they adopted a list of eight priority areas that was put forward by the Belgian Presidency: Europol's involvement in investigations; the possibility for Europol to launch investigations; enlarging Europol's mandate; the role of Europol in ensuring security at European Council meetings; improving information files for the purposes of analysis; relations between Eurojust and Europol; parliamentary, judicial and administrative control over Europol; simplifying the amendment procedure for Europol's Convention. The aim of the last point is to get rid of the long ratification deadlines for amending the Convention and have a simple Council decision instead.
The deadline set by the Justice and Home Affairs scoreboard for adopting the decision allowing Europol to launch investigations and get involved in investigations expires in April 2004. According to the scoreboard, the European Commission should put forward a proposal on the parliamentary and judicial control of Europol in the third quarter of 2001.