Luxemburg, 13/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - After four years of fruitless negotiations, the German Presidency on Wednesday formally paved the way for the creation of reinforced cooperation to guarantee the rights of suspects within the European Union. “I noted that there was no agreement. It is up to us to see where it will take us”, said German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries, addressing her last press conference at the head of the Council of the EU.
A proposal in favour of the rights of the accused: the proposed framework decision of 2004 on minimum procedural rights granted within the framework of criminal proceedings within the EU (EUROPE 9373) provided, amongst other things, for rights which can be applied to the whole of national criminal proceedings: access to the assistance of a lawyer, free access to interpreting services, etc). In order to be adopted, this proposal requires the unanimous agreement of the Twenty-Seven. The German Presidency had decided to put a final version of the text to the ministers, including a proposal to the States to limit the scope of application of the text to proceedings related to the European arrest warrant and proceedings resulting from this, such as the transfer of a prisoner between Member States. Countries will also have the option to extend the scope of application of the proposal to the whole of their national proceedings, if they so wish. This was not counting the refusal of six States.
The United Kingdom, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia and the Czech Republic say no: “We cannot agree to this”, said the British representative, the first to take the floor after the offer was made by the Presidency. The main reasons mentioned by the United Kingdom are the lack of a legal basis for the proposal, which could not apply to national cases but only to trans-national ones, something the country would not be prepared to accept. For his part, the Maltese representative attacked Germany's interpretation of this failure. “Unanimity is the equivalent of a consensus”, he explained, adding that there would be no point in pitting six States against 21 others in that this was the rule in this field. The Czech Representative took issue with the method of a text which, he feels, fails to respect the principle of subsidiarity and imposes too binding a framework. He added that reinforced cooperation in this field would be “harmful”. For Ireland, “this is a problem of principle”, due to the impact on national proceedings. Cyprus was certainly the only country to show any enthusiasm at all regarding the latest proposal by the Presidency.
Towards reinforce cooperation: “I formally note that there is no political agreement”, said Ms Zypries, after the work had finished. Legally, this simple comment is the first step leading to the constitution of reinforced cooperation. It will be followed by the agreements of at least eight Member States of the Council deciding by qualified majority. “I am in favour of this reinforced cooperation”, French Justice Minister Rachida Dati has already stated. Ms Zypries replied: “this means that we have the first State which is inclined to undertake reinforce cooperation”. However, the German Minister took pains to point out that it would be easier to return to this issue after the European Council. For his part, the European Commission with responsibility for Justice, Franco Frattini, has indicated that he would not be taking position in favour of this kind of mechanism immediately. (bc)