Brussels, 04/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Justice and Home Affairs Council in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (chaired by the Belgian Ministers Marc Verwilghen and Antoine Duquesne) will start by tackling the most difficult issue on its agenda - the European arrest warrant. The Extraordinary European Council of 21 September mandated the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers to reach agreement at their 6/7 December meeting on this document and also on the definition and common sanctions for terrorism. Will this objective be met? It does not look so tricky for the definition of terrorism, despite Finnish and Austrian reservations, as for the European arrest warrant where there are many issues left to be sorted out (see EUROPE of 28 November, p.8). The EU's Permanent Representatives are expected to study the issue further on Wednesday, while bilateral contact between Mr Verwilghen and his counterparts is continuing.
Debates will concentrate on justice matters on Thursday, when the ministers are expected to decide on other important issues like the creation of Eurojust or the updating of a confidential police list of terrorist groups. The ministers will meet the director of Europol, Jürgen Storbeck, who will be signing (against the backdrop or the Council) the first cooperation agreement with the United States covering the exchange of strategic and technical information and also personal information. On Friday, the ministers will be looking at home affairs issues (procedure for granting and withdrawing refugee status, border controls, Eurodac and visas) and will take part in the meeting of the Joint Committee with Iceland and Norway (EUROPE will be returning to this tomorrow).
European arrest warrant. As far as the Presidency is concerned, despite important technical and political issues that still need to be sorted out, the decision is ready to be signed. Much hangs on the results of the ongoing political discussions and experts express "doubt" that all the questions will be settled. Proposals are currently under preparation for a situation where agreement has not been reached on Friday, admitted the minister's spokesperson, stressing that the Presidency was counting on agreement being struck on Thursday. The proposal made in mid-September by the Commission to create a European arrest warrant aims to replace the extradition procedure (which is long and complicated) with a simple handover of individuals from one judicial authority to another using the European arrest warrant (after judicial control). The Commission has suggested that the new procedure also be used for any individual condemned to at least four months in prison or wanted for questioning for a crime with a sentence of at least one year in prison. At the previous Council (see EUROPE of 20 November, p.11), all Member States apart from Italy and Ireland approved the list of 30 crimes for which the arrest warrant would automatically apply and for which the state being asked to hand over the individual cannot refuse on the grounds that the crime in question is not a crime in its own country (double indemnity). Italy wants the list to contain no more than 6 crimes and Ireland is concerned about vagueness in the definitions of the crimes on the list. Luxembourg approved the list but called for a country to be able to demand that a person can be pursued again for any crime attracting less than four years' imprisonment. These two issues have not yet been settled and are being discussed by ministers. Another political issue is a country handing over its own nationals which Austria and Greece are unhappy about.
Among the so-called technical issues (but which are extremely important politically) is the issue of the date when the agreement would come into force (which is likely to be postponed). The Commission wanted every Member State to prepare to apply the new procedure as from 31 December 2001 but agreement seems to be focussing on it coming into force on 1 January 2004. The ministers are also discussing the "time scope" of the mandate - should it only apply to crimes committed after it comes into force? The Council will also discuss the geographical scope of the mandate - can a state refuse to hand over somebody if the crime or alleged crime was committed in its own territory? If so, should that country pledge to prosecute or punish the individual itself? If the crime in question is prescribed in the country receiving the request, most countries want that country to be able to refuse to carry out the handover. Some, however, feel that this would contradict the scrapping of double indemnity.
Terrorism. After the agreement on the definition of terrorism reached at the Council on 16 November, the Presidency hopes to be able to strike a broad political agreement to decide to sanction belonging to a terrorist group with at least 8 years imprisonment and at least 15 years for being a leading member of such a group. The Finnish government and parliament are still discussing this issue (see EUROPE of 29 November, p.8 and 20 November, p.11 for details).
Eurojust: the Council will probably reach a political agreement on the creation of Eurojust, co-operation unit for European judges and prosecutors. The questions to settle are the linguistic regime (a compromise should be found on the possibility of recourse to a translation in all languages, if and when necessary, but without that being systematic), the question of the headquarters (which should be settled at the Laeken Summit), the management of personal data (possibility for all to have access to data concerning them, exchange of data with partners: Europol, United States…), the role of Olaf, the funding of Eurojust (the proposal being that each magistrate be remunerated by their country, and that the remainder be up to the Community budget), the immunity of its staff. You may recall that a provisional unit of pro-Eurojust is already in activity. Eurojust is expected to replace it in February or March.
Combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography: the Council may continue examining the proposal for a framework-decision submitted by the Commission in March. Discussions will more specifically be on the definition of conduct to incriminate, and virtual child pornography.
Parental responsibility: the Presidency will on progress in work relating to parental responsibility, over the return of children to their usual place of residence in case of displacement, notably unlawful, to another Member State.
Harmonisation of sentences: the Council will begin a debate of principle on procedures of sentences harmonisation. This debate did not take pace at the last Council, for lack of time (see EUROPE of 16 November)
Combating terrorism: the Council will adopt the update of the police and confidential list of terrorists active in Europe, which must not be confused with the list of terrorists and terrorist groups whose assets have been frozen on the basis of United Nations decisions, and that the European Commission proposes updating following the 11 September attacks. The Council will hear a report by the director of Europol on combating terrorism.