De Vries blasts EU states over lax anti-terror laws

By David Cronin

Date: 10/06/04

MEMBER states sluggish in adhering to international rules outlawing the financing of al-Qaeda and other subversive organizations were rebuked yesterday (9 June) by the EU's anti-terrorism coordinator.

Gijs de Vries argued that it is essential for all EU governments to ratify the United Nations convention for the suppression on the financing of terrorism, agreed in 1999.

It obliges each ratifying state to investigate the raising of funds for terrorists, to freeze the assets of terrorist organizations or seize their finances.

"We have to make sure this instrument is on our statute books," the Dutchman said, adding that such a step is necessary for EU governments to approach countries in the wider world which may be sources of terrorist financing.

"We can only have credibility if we are to have our own house in order," de Vries insisted.

Germany, Belgium, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have yet to ratify this convention, according to the latest information from the UN.

Appointed by EU leaders following the 11 March train bombings in Madrid, de Vries gave his first report to justice and home affairs ministers this week.

Stating that an anti-terror strategy should not just be based on learning lessons after an atrocity but on long-term goals, he singled out the cutting-off of money to terrorists as such a priority.

He also recognized that police agency Europol wishes to have more resources to carry out analysis on terrorism and its links with other forms of crime such as money-laundering and drug smuggling. "It would be helpful if Europol could develop the capacity to analyze these linkages."

Yet he pointed out that some member states have failed to ratify all the protocols amending the Europol convention, which underpins the work of The Hague-based police office. The protocols have been designed in some cases to widen the remit of Europol. In the anti-terrorism action plan approved by EU leaders at their March summit, a deadline of December this year for ratifying these protocols has been set.

Also, the only governments which had ratified a 2000 convention on money-laundering by last month were Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Portugal and Sweden.

De Vries said he wanted less cumbersome procedures to apply to Europol's work.

"As an instrument, the protocol is an increasingly unwieldy one; that is why the European Convention decided to abolish it altogether," he explained, referring to the constitution-drafting body headed by France's ex-president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

A former MEP and Dutch government minister, de Vries is advocating several measures to avoid delays in implementing agreed measures.

One key measure is that national parliaments should be consulted at an earlier stage in the preparation of such laws, to reduce the likelihood that implementation will be stalled by elected assemblies' objections.

De Vries sought to allay concerns that the fight against terrorism will lead to an erosion of civil liberties, remarking that the "fiercely independent" European Court of Human Rights could adjudicate on challenges to the new laws.

"A lot depends on the case law of the court."

Earlier this week, de Vries was challenged on his job's legitimacy. Germany's Interior Minister Otto Schilly queried whether the appointment of the anti-terrorism chief amounted to the formation of a new EU body and whether this had a legal base under the Union's treaties. In response, the Dutchman retorted that he had been given a "job description"by EU leaders in late March and that he respects it.

Report of comments made by Gijs de Vries, the European Union's anti-terrorism co-ordinator, at the Justice and Home Affairs Council, Luxembourg, 8 June 2004.

• Primary Source

http://consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/jha/80868.pdf http://consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/jha/80868.pdf

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