Brussels, 04/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - A European Commission source says that the Institution regrets the fact that progress made by the Convention for co-operation in the fields of criminal justice and the police was called into question by the Intergovernmental Conference. It has been stressed that requests for modification were fewer for asylum, immigration, and civil legal co-operation matters. It appears that Ireland would like the entire dossier to be reviewed. On the other hand, Belgium, France, Spain and German are calling for it to be left untouched.
More specifically, Austria, Portugal and Slovakia apparently asked for unanimity to be kept for all criminal legal and police co-operation. Sweden would like some form of emergency clause for these areas, which would allow a State which may be put into the minority by qualified majority voting to refer the proposal in question to the European Council. The United Kingdom would prefer unanimity to remain in place for criminal procedures.
The United Kingdom and Finland are calling for the harmonisation of definitions and penalties of criminal acts to be limited to a list defined by the Treaty. They are thus calling for the paragraph allowing Council, in unanimity and following the approval of the European Parliament, to extend this list, to be removed. Seven Member States or acceding countries have called for the modification of article III-175, which would allow Council to create a European Public Prosecutor to fight serious cross-border crime and criminal acts which may harm the financial interests of the Union. The United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland and Slovakia are said to have asked to get rid of this altogether, said a Community source. Latvia has "its doubts". Austria would like to restrict the Prosecutor's competency to the financial interests of the Union, and the Czech Republic to crimes affecting the Union. The European Commission would also prefer to see a reduced competency for this European Prosecutor.
The EP is to hold a debate in Brussels on Wednesday on the IGC, with the Commission President, Romano Prodi, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Roberto Antonione, on behalf of the Italian Presidency.