Brussels, 03/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's Citizens' Freedoms Committee is calling on the plenary to adopt, with a few amendments, the European Commission's proposal to continue the five EU police and justice professional co-operation programmes in a single programme. The report by Carlos Coelho (EPP, Portugal) was adopted by 36 to 1 with 2 abstentions. It will be debated in Strasbourg on Monday by the plenary under the consultation procedure, meaning the Council is under no obligation to accept the EP's suggested amendments.
With the support of the Council and the EP for its plans, the European Commission proposed on 9 November 2001 to merge the five biannual programmes due to end on 31 December into a single programme. The programmes encourage exchange, training and co-operation among justice officials (Grotius Penal II), repression services (Oisin II), anti-human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children (Stop II), crime prevention (Hippokrates) and anti-organised crime (Falcone). Over the two years the programmes have funding of EUR 4 million (Grotius), EUR 4 million (Stop), EUR 8 million (Oisin), EUR 2 million (Hippokrates) and EUR 10 million over 5 years for Falcone. The Commission suggests continuing the programmes in a single five-year programme (2003-2007) with EUR 63.5 million over the five years.
The Coelho report welcomes this proposal, which the EP had been calling for, but wants a few amendments to be made, limiting the new programme, for example, to four years sot that it ends at the same time as the current budget programming period on the grounds that the Budgetary Authority cannot accept a draft multiannual programme extending beyond the current Financial Perspectives. The report says that in terms of the growing interest in co-operation between police and justice officials and the new, ambitious targets in the proposal, it might be necessary for the programme to have a bigger budget. The Citizens' Freedoms Committee also tables a series of amendments giving details of the programme's targets, explaining that since the projects will have to be assessed against the targets, it is important to set out the targets in detail and avoid empty phrases.