Brussels, 31/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 31 January, the Council, Commission and Parliament made clear their desire to work together to prepare a specific inter-institutional legislative programme on the Justice, Freedom and Security (JFS) area for 2008 and 2009, ahead of the Lisbon treaty's coming in to effect.
This is the main point to come from the annual debate on the JFS area, held during the European Parliament (EP) plenary session in Brussels. Negotiations will now begin to draw up a programme common to the three institutions, with the aim of identifying measures that can be finalised before the new Treaty comes into effect, and those on which political negotiations could be held in 2008 and officially adopted between January and May 2009. The need for in-depth dialogue results mainly from the arrangements provided for in the new Treaty on matters relating to justice and home affairs, such as extending the co-decision mechanism, extension of qualified majority voting, and widening the area of responsibility of the European Court of Justice. “We are prepared, through dialogue, to come to a gentleman's agreement, and, in a very short timespan, on an inter-institutional legislative programme covering 2008 and the start of 2009,” said the new chairman of the EP civil liberties committee Gérard Deprez (ALDE, Belgium). He said that such a programme would contain a limited number of common priorities in sensitive issues which would allow benefit to be gained from the arrangements contained in the new Treaty, without jumping too far ahead. Deprez pointed out, “We are not motivated by some perverse desire to delay the implementation of important dossiers”. This comment was keenly awaited by the Council and the Commission insofar as the Parliament could have tried to slow the adoption of several complex texts (police and legal cooperation), which have not yet been definitively adopted and which will come under the co-decision procedure from 1 January 2009. Slovenian Home Affairs Minister Dragutin Mate, whose country currently holds the EU Presidency, hoped that proposals like making Europol a Community Agency (see EUROPE 9583) and Schengen II (see EUROPE 9442) could be adopted by the end of the year. “It is not desirable to delay their adoption,” he stressed, noting that the Presidency was ready to cooperate more closely with the EP. Similarly, he pointed out that he hoped for a first reading agreement with Parliament on the “returns directive” (see EUROPE 9576). “This directive must not make expulsion procedures more difficult,” he said. Justice Security and Freedom Commissioner Franco Frattini indicated he would not compromise on three demands: “cooperation with the EP”, “not slowing down initiatives” and “not anticipating the Lisbon Treaty”. He would, therefore, be happy with an inter-institutional agreement. It was all the more important, he said, since, in 2007, 20% of all EU strategic initiatives were in the field of Justice, Liberty and Security. In 2008, eight out of 26 strategic proposals were also related to his area of responsibility.
Several MEPs from all sides of the House welcomed the political desire of the three institutions to work together. “We have to look to the future,” said Manfred Weber (EPP-ED, Germany), stating that there had to be an end of negotiations in the backrooms of the Council. Welcoming the inter-institutional approach, Italian MEP Claudio Fava (PES) stressed that the EP had to be consulted as soon as the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect. Sarah Ludford (ALDE, UK) said that it was now time to end the last ten years of imbalance between freedom-security and justice. An inter-institutional agreement was important if co-decision was not to be used arbitrarily, said Jean Lambert (Greens/EFA, UK). “Parliament was used as an alibi. We want a full agreement,” she said, referring to the agreement on the retention of telecommunications data as part of the fight against terrorism (see EUROPE 9089). Similarly, GUE/NGL MEP Giusto Catania (Italy) said he appreciated the willingness of the Council and the Commission to have an inter-institutional agreement. Catania said that “citizens will be able to exercise democratic control on choices in the JFS area”. Martine Roure (PES, France) spoke of the “decisive turning point” for the EP in developing a genuine JFS area. Nonetheless, she pointed out that a list of priorities could not be drawn up without involvement of national parliaments. In conclusion, Mate indicated that by January 2009, they had to begin with dividing up the tasks in the dossiers that had already received the EP's opinion and the other dossiers on which they needed to begin close discussion with MEPs. The European Parliament has scheduled voting on a resolution on JFS area progress for March. At the same time, negotiations for establishing common priorities will soon begin. The competent committee of the EP has given itself till the end of April to draw up this list. (B.C.)