Brussels, 07/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Justice and Home Affairs Ministers of the EU will struggle on Tuesday to overcome their differences on the appointment of the next Europol director. With the mandate of the current- and first ever- President of the European Police Office, Jürgen Storbeck, coming to an end on 30 June, the Presidency and the Member States stress that the situation is at "stalemate". "There is still not a meeting of minds", the Irish President told journalists on Monday. The Presidency stressed "the urgency of reaching decision" to the Member States "in no uncertain terms".
The European Council regularly bemoans the fact that Europol is underused, but the Twenty-Five have still not reached the consensus needed to appoint a new director. Germany wants the Council to reappoint Mr Storbeck, France wants to replace him with Jacques Franquet, current director of the International and Technical Police Co-operation Service (SCITP), and Italy has not withdrawn the application of Emanuele Marotta, former Europol deputy director.
At the last Council at the end of April, the French candidate enjoyed greater support- but this progress, which is still in evidence, is not enough, as unanimity is required. Those opposing the French candidate stress that Mr Franquet is close to the age cut-off, and speaks only French. The former French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy commented that they should clarify who they needed, "a policeman or an interpreter". Italy opposed the April Council, preventing it from proceeding to a vote. France hopes that an agreement is not out of the question for Tuesday, and that a vote will take place this time. If not, France will insist that the whole process is started again "from scratch", which could take six months, according to a diplomatic source. If the Member States have not reached agreement by the end of the month, Europol's first deputy director, Mariano Simancas, will step into the breach.
On of the reports to be presented to Tuesday's Council by the anti-terrorism co-ordinator, Gijs de Vries, confirms that the Member States still do not share a notion of the role Europol should play. Some of them, such as Germany, want to give it a greater role, others feel it should be just a channel for the exchange of information, which would work more by contact between Member State liaison agents posted to Europol than by Europol itself (see EUROPE of 5 June, p.10).