Brussels, 24/03/2004 (Agence Europe) - Gijs de Vries is very likely to be appointed European Union coordinator against terrorism on Thursday, according to information from European diplomats. As a representative of the Dutch government to the Convention, which drafted the constitutional treaty, de Vries has been involved in European affairs for many years. MEP from 1984-98, he was in the presidency of the Liberal group at the European Parliament from 1994-98. Since 1998, he returned to Dutch politics as Secretary of State for Home Affairs then in 2002 he went to the second chamber of the Dutch parliament for a number of months, before working at the European Convention.
It is decided that Heads of state and governments will decide during the summit to create this new post of anti-terrorist coordinator, thus confirming the agreement between the Councils of Justice and Home Affairs last Friday and the General Affairs Council on Monday (EUROPE 23 March p 5).
Like ministers of the interior last Friday and ministers of foreign affairs on Monday, Heads of State and governments are expected to acknowledge, at the beginning of their meeting, the lack of cooperation between their intelligence services and the police as being one of the main shortcomings in anti-terrorist cooperation. The will be calling on Javier Solana to present during their next summit in June a proposal for integrating the "intelligence capabilities" into the Council Secretariat. They will also be adopting the draft European Union declaration on terrorism prepared by their ministers, which sets out the exact dates for the adoption, implementation and use of legal and police cooperation instruments (EUROPE 20-23 March p 4). Germany, which wanted these dates to be replaced with the single mention of "as soon as possible" did not gain support for this proposal. Heads of State and governments will perhaps recognise the difficulty of getting over the usual framework of bilateral meetings between intelligence services in order to establish sufficient trust for sharing information at a European level.
The coordinator will work at the Council Secretariat General to coordinate activities of the different work groups and to ensure the implementation of decisions. He will not have any operational power and whose main mission is to keep the Council informed.
The candidacy was presented by the Benelux countries and was the only candidate for the post. The High Representative for the CFSP and Secretary General of the Council, Javier Solana, is expected to formally inform the Irish presidency and the European Council of his intention to appoint de Vries. His appointment will be only operation a few months after another Dutch man, Jaap de Hop Scheffer, takes up his post as NATO Secretary General.