Brussels, 05/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - Poland is the only Member State among the twenty five to block the text on prisoner transfer within the EU, said the Finnish Presidency on Monday. “One single Member State opposed the adoption of the text … it was Poland,” said Finnish justice minister Leena Luhtanen, who was chairing her last EU Council. The aim of draft framework-directive is to simplify the transfer of prisoners to serve their sentences in the Member State of which they are nationals, or which is their usual country of residence. The idea is to make it easier for prisoners to rejoin society in the country to which they are attached. Although justice ministers reached agreement on the content of the text, Poland was opposed to it on a matter of principle. “Poland is against the principle of automatic transfer, the main consequence of which would be to swell its prison population,” said a diplomatic source. “This is a very disappointing approach from Poland. The Presidency even offered Poland more time to implement the decision,” said European Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini.
Mr Frattini was also disappointed that “no result” was reached on the 2004 draft framework-decision on common minimum standards for criminal procedural safeguards. Several Member States, including the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, refuse to commit themselves to European harmonisation of criminal proceedings.
Over lunch on Monday, ministers discussed “violent video games”. This was following Mr Frattini's letter, sent to the home affairs ministers of the twenty five Member States and of Romania and Bulgaria in mid-November, calling on them to ban the sale of a video game - “Rule of Rose”- which was felt to be too violent for children. At a press conference, the Commissioner announced that he would convene the European standing forum on children's rights at the start of 2007 to consider how to prevent and eradicate violent video games. He said wanted to convince the manufacturers of these games that it was counterproductive to distribute them. (bc)