Brussels, 30/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - On 2 December the Justice and Home Affairs Council will focus on preparing the chapter on terrorism for the European Council of 17 December. Ministers are expected to approve the main guidelines of a strategy against funding terrorism and conclusions on the emergency response in terrorist attacks and to ratify updating the terrorism action plan. The presidency hopes that it will be close to an agreement on the proposal for sending Europol and Eurojust information on terrorist activity. The Council is also expected to examine the framework decision on retaining data by telecommunications operators to indicate to them what type of data can be collated.
The Council may reach an agreement on the main articles in the proposal on exchanging information on legal files, presented by the European Commission, following the Fourniret case (EUROPE 14 October). Ministers will have to indicate why they have not advanced on the mandate for obtaining and transmitting evidence (EUROPE 24 January).
The very sensitive case involving sanctions for marine pollution will be on the agenda again (EUROPE 20 November). If the presidency does not want to focus its last European Council on this issue and not put it on the agenda, France and Spain are expected to raise the issue.