Brussels, 04/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - During the review of The Hague Programme on Monday, EU justice ministers unanimously agreed to slam the “insufficient progress” in some areas of criminal justice and police cooperation. However, a large majority of Member States were opposed to the European Council, meeting on 14-15 December, taking further the matter of decision-making mechanisms which apply in the area of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA), and in particular the issue of the abandonment of the right of veto. In order to break the deadlock, France proposed that Member States agree to a project setting out the various options from “complete communitisation” to the “status quo”.
In their conclusions, ministers stressed that considerable progress had been made in the implementation, of The Hague Programme. In addition, they finally decided, after a long time hesitating to include the fact that “insufficient progress” had been made in police and criminal justice cooperation. This means that improvements can and should be made, say the conclusions. Several States, led by Belgium, welcomed this very critical form of words. Belgian justice minister Laurette Onkelinx said that the conclusions did not mince their words, and in passing she criticised the lack of ambition of some Members in the area of JHA. Her Danish counterpart Ms Lene Espersen pointed to many delays in the implementation of decisions, delays which were mainly due to the lack of preparation of Council debates and the attitude of some countries, which do not consult their national parliaments before coming to the Council table. Other ministers, such as Irish Deputy Prime Minister Michael McDowell, felt, however, that the conclusions were too negative because they minimised the progress already made. They nonetheless came into line with the Presidency's compromise. Ministers also decided that the matter of decision-making mechanisms in the area of JHA would be brought to the attention of the December Council. In its initial conclusions, the Finnish Presidency proposed that this issue be taken further by the next European Council. But at the insistence of an “overwhelming majority”, in the words of British Home Secretary John Reid, this proposal was watered down. The whole problem rests on the possibility of using the “bridging” clause of the Treaty of Nice (Article 42), which would allow a move to qualified majority voting in Council, if this move were unanimously approved. This, in turn, would mean that instead of being simply consulted, the European Parliament would be involved in co-decision with the Council, and the powers of the European Court of Justice would be increased. “A deeper discussion at European Council level would not make any sense. The matter has to be debated at working group level,” said the representative of the Polish government. Mr McDowell added that it was useless referring matters to the European Council in those terms. Alluding to the informal Tampere Council, Ms Brigitte Zypries, German justice minister, was more pessimistic, opining that the outcome would not be any different from the one they got. Last September, the Twenty Five showed the extent to which their positions differed on this issue (see EUROPE 9271). “It's a real let-down for the Presidency,” a diplomatic source told EUROPE. The Finnish Presidency seems determined to achieve a concrete result before Germany assumes the Presidency of the EU Council in January 2007. “So long as the issue of the Constitutional Treaty remains unresolved, it will be difficult to make progress,” added the same source. Among those opposed to moving to the bridging clause are the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Latvia and Slovakia. Other countries like France, Luxemburg and Belgium are strongly in favour.
To get round the difficulties and improve the decision-making process in the area of JHA, the French delegation proposed a series of intermediate options that could be considered, which, it said, went from full communitisation to the status quo. “We have to accept that there is no consensus. … We have to think about concrete proposals to take things forward. … In June we were given a mandate by the European Council to work on this issue,” said French Ambassador to the EU Pierre Sellal. France proposed to adjust the matters that would be affected by the transfer to the bridging clause, voting conditions on transferred matters, the Court of Justice regime and application in time. Italy and Spain have already said they were prepared to consider this solution. (bc)