Brussels, 11/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - The future of the European Police Office (Europol), European asylum policy and immigration management will be among the priorities of the informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers on 13 and 14 January in Vienna. These priorities will be included on the Council's operational programme for 2006 presented end December by the Austrian Presidency and the future Finnish Presidency. As we pointed out earlier, justice and the external dimension of JHA will also be on the programme of discussions between ministers (EUROPE 9104).
Europol's future. In the context of strengthening a global and coherent approach on combating terrorism, the Austrian Presidency considers that future development of Eurpol is of vital importance if law enforcement authorities of the Member States are to derive maximum benefit. The constitutional treaty was to have allowed the statute of Europol to change from an intergovernmental system to a Community process. As the Treaty did not take effect, the current architecture of Europol is difficult to modify as it is based on a Convention signed in 1995 by Member States. The Austrian Presidency itself considers that the legal base of this structure is “too rigid”. Diplomatic sources say it would seem that the Austrian Presidency wishes to make the legal base of Europol evolve by introducing recourse to a framework decision that would bring in, de facto, greater flexibility in development of the structure. With this in mind, Council unanimity would be enough without necessarily having to resort to the ratification process, as is currently the case for protocols that amend the Europol Convention. (What is more, the ratification of a protocol by all Member States may take an extremely long time and, given that several Member Stats have still not ratified three of the protocols amending the Europol Convention, none of them can yet take effect). Ministers will also examine the role of Europol in the EU's internal security and will tackle the problem of horizontal cooperation between the different bodies and institutions that operate in this field: Europol, Eurojust, Frontex and the joint EU Situation Centre (SitCen). “Germany's position on all these subjects is keenly awaited”, a diplomatic source said. Germany believes Europol has the vocation of becoming a federal and centralised European police, something like a “European FBI”. After the Informal Council, it is foreseen that a group of experts will work on the practical implementation of the various options chosen by the ministers. A first meeting of experts will be held on 23 and 24 February in Vienna.
Asylum and migration management. In this field, the JHA Council will firstly focus on the external dimension, dwelling on regional protection programmes (EUROPE 9048) which above all aim to improve the protection of refugees by using sustainable solutions (repatriation, integration or re-installation in a third country). An action programme is foreseen in the new western Independent States (Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus) as far as regions of origin are concerned. Commissioner Franco Frattini is, moreover, expected to present the activities and the timetable to ministers as set out in these programmes. After the assessment and selection phases, the Commission foresees the beginning of operations on the ground in autumn 2006. The first programme provides EUR 4 million for Tanzania, and EUR 2 million will be released for the second project in the western Independent States. The Commission recommends close cooperation with the High Commissioner for Refugees.
Continuing the Hague programme adopted in 2004, the Austrian EU Presidency also decided to focus its efforts on the creation of a common asylum policy. In this field, ministers will discuss the second phase of development of a common European asylum regime, with a view to finalising common asylum procedure and a uniform status for persons benefiting from asylum, or alternate protection. The EU may envisage putting an end to the creation of teams responsible for providing assistance to the countries that do not have the necessary experience to face up to a large number of asylum requests. Upcoming work on the matter will be based on legislative proposals presented by the Commission and should take into account the evaluation of first phase legal instruments. On the question of migration, Franco Frattini is expected to brief ministers on follow-up to the roadmap on legal immigration, which was launched on 21 December last (EUROPE 9104).