EU’s crime-fighting agency finally comes of age

Date: 20/05/1999

As the EU police agency Europol gets ready to begin working at full capacity this summer, seven years after EU leaders agreed to set it up, Simon Coss examines how the organisation has evolved since it was first envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty

FOR an institution that has not even opened for business yet, the European police office Europol has been surprisingly busy over the past five years.

If all goes according to plan, the agency should start working at full capacity on 1 July. From then on, it will have the right to gather and store personal information on its three vast databases, known collectively as The Europol Computer System (TECS).

But even though Europol will not be able to begin carrying out its key role as a central coordinating unit between national law enforcement agencies until the summer, it has been highly active on the EU crime prevention scene since 1994.

The first official mention of Europol came in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty which transformed the European Community (EC) into the European Union. Maastricht created two new lawmaking structures - known as the second and third 'pillars' - to complement the existing EC ('first pillar') legislative framework.

The second pillar covers the Union's embryonic Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and has so far only really been used to produce a series of EU-backed declarations on major world events.

The third pillar deals with issues such as combating drug trafficking, fighting organised crime, tackling fraud and agreeing common approaches on asylum and immigration issues.

These topics had previously been dealt with on an essentially ad hoc basis and it was decided that for the third pillar to work properly, new structures would be needed to ensure a more permanent level of cooperation between national police forces. Europol was one of those new structures.

However, one of the characteristics of the new third pillar was that all deals concluded under its provisions had to be agreed unanimously and then ratified by all of the EU's national parliaments - a process which can take years.

In the case of Europol, negotiations to draw up the Union convention setting out how the agency would operate quickly became mired in wrangles between national governments.

The biggest stumbling block came in the shape of the UK, which vehemently opposed any suggestion that the European Court of Justice should have a say in resolving possible disputes over Europol's remit.

As London dug its heels in deeper and deeper over the ECJ question, EU governments realised that some sort of stopgap measures would be needed if the Union wanted to get started on its crusade to stamp out cross-border crime.

At a special meeting on 2 June 1993, the EU's justice and home affairs ministers cut a deal which provided what they felt was a workable solution to the temporary problem.

They agreed to set up the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU), described by Union officials, in a classic example of EU jargon, as "a forerunner to Europol in the pre-convention phase". When it opened for business on 3 January 1994, its powers were restricted to playing a coordinating role in cross-border drug investigations.

However, its remit did not remain this limited for long. At the end of 1994, Union leaders meeting in the German city of Essen for one of their twice-yearly summits decided on the first of a series of extensions to the EDU's powers.

They agreed that it should take part in operations to combat the trade in illegal radioactive material, investigate crimes involving clandestine immigration networks, help tackle vehicle trafficking and coordinate investigations into money laundering.

This meant that, by the beginning of 1995, the EDU had become a very powerful organisation, despite the fact that the rules and regulations setting it up had been scrutinised neither by national legislatures nor by MEPs in the European Parliament.

Civil liberties organisations were quick to condemn what they saw as the creation of a de facto EU police agency with no apparent democratic control.

UK-based civil rights organisation Statewatch argued that the only body which was overseeing the unit's activities on a regular basis was the Council of Ministers' Europol working group - a committee which consists predominantly of national law enforcement officials.

" The self-regulation of EDU's activities by another group also composed largely of police officers must be a cause for concern," complained the organisation.

But the Essen deal was only the first in a series of moves to increase the EDU's powers.

During 1996, the office's remit was widened even further. In February, EU foreign ministers decided to allow it to take part in investigations into trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children. In July, rules were agreed for carrying out 'controlled deliveries' - essentially 'sting' operations - in drugs cases. In November, new powers were granted to the unit allowing it to set up a database on synthetic drugs such as ecstasy and coordinate investigations into 'drug tourism' (foreign travel undertaken with the intention of buying substances outlawed at home).

The EDU also took part in a pilot project set up by the member countries of the Schengen free-movement pact to investigate the methods used by car thieves to transport vehicles out of the EU.

This final operation raised concerns that databases run by Schengen and the future Europol could eventually be merged to create a vast computer resource containing sensitive personal information on private individuals.

It was also significant as the year when EU governments finally managed to agree on the terms of the Europol convention. The deal, announced at the June European summit in Florence, was finally concluded after the UK was assured that the ECJ would not have to be involved in any disputes over Europol's role.

Shortly after Florence, London scored something of a public relations coup when it became the first EU government to ratify the Europol convention.

Over the next two years, the other 14 EU governments followed suit and on 1 October 1998 - nearly five years after the EDU was set up - the convention entered into force and the drugs unit was finally allowed to describe itself by its real name: Europol.

But even this watershed was somewhat of a false dawn. Because of disagreements between France and Germany over the make-up of the Joint Supervisory Body (JSB) which would oversee Europol's day-to-day work, the agency was still not allowed to start filling TECS up with information.

In reality, Europol was - and still is - simply the EDU by another name. But not for much longer.

EUROPOL - KEY DATES:

1992 Establishment of Europol agreed in the Maastricht Treaty

2 June 1993 EU justice and home affairs ministers create the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU)

3 Jan 1994 EDU begins work

Dec 1994 EDU's powers extended for the first time at Essen summit

1996 Further extensions of EDU's powers

June 1996 Europol convention signed at Florence summit

1 Oct 1998 Europol convention enters into force, but legal problems prevent the office operating at full capacity

1 July 1999? Europol finally starts working at full strength

AREAS COVERED:

• Drug smuggling
• Smuggling of radioactive materials
• Car smuggling
• Clandestine immigration networks
• Traffic in human beings
• Money laundering

Terrorism and tackling euro counterfeiters will soon be added to this list

ORGANISATION:

Personnel: approximately 155 at present, expected to rise to 350 by 2003

1999 Budget: 18.89 million

The Europol Computer System (TECS) is made up of three databases. The information system, which has the least restrictive access rules and the analysis and index systems, which are covered by stricter rules.

Address:

Europol - Raamweg 47, The Hague

Tel: 00 31 70 302 5302

Website: http://www.europol.europa.eu

Keyword: Europol.