Vitorino backs stronger role for ‘Eurojust’

Date: 19/10/00

By John Shelley

THE European Commission is set to wade into the row over plans for an office of EU prosecutors with a demand that the body's powers be boosted.

Justice Commissioner António Vitorino will next week ask his colleagues to approve a paper calling on member states to give the planned organisation - dubbed Eurojust - more wide-ranging authority than they are currently proposing.

In particular, he is keen for it to be given the power to instigate its own investigations without restrictions on the types of crime it can deal with. "We would like Eurojust to be as powerful as possible. We want to go as far as possible with this instrument," said one official.

Member states agreed last month to set up a preliminary form of the office with only weak powers, probably some time next year. Now governments are gearing up for a fresh battle over how its role should evolve and what powers it should be given to fulfil the stated aim of having an office which helps co-ordinate the work of national authorities in international cases and supports cross-border investigations.

There are currently two proposals on the table, one from Germany and one favoured by Paris but actually drawn up jointly by France, Sweden, Portugal and Belgium.

Rather than throwing another completely new proposal into the ring Vitorino will call on member states to take the meatiest parts of both plans and give Eurojust as much authority as possible.

He supports France's idea of an active Eurojust which is able to launch and follow its own investigations, and rejects the German model of a prosecutors' office which simply responds to requests from members states.

But he wants to retain Berlin's plan to give Eurojust the ability to look into all types of criminal activity and not restrict it to a limited list, as suggested by Paris.

The European Commission is set to wade into the row over plans for an office of EU prosecutors with a demand that the body's powers be boosted.