19-20 March Justice and Home Affairs Council

Date: 28/03/1996

MINISTERS made little progress in their efforts to agree on the convention on external borders aimed at regulating access to the EU. The proposed convention remains deadlocked amid discord between member states over the competence of the European Court of Justice and the failure of the UK and Spain to agree on how the convention should be applied to Gibraltar.

PROGRESS was achieved on defusing the Spanish-Belgian row over the extradition of persons suspected of politically-motivated crimes. Ministers reached a large measure of agreement on an Italian proposal, under which Article 3 of the planned Convention on Extradition will be drafted in such a way that no serious terrorist act shall be considered a political offence. This did not go quite far enough for Spain, which would like the list of serious terrorist offences to include membership of a terrorist association.

AFTER Denmark and the UK dropped their objections, justice ministers finally reached political agreement on a joint action programme to combat racism and xenophobia. Amongst other measures, they committed themselves to stepping up judicial cooperation and agreed to intensify the fight against racist and xenophobic propaganda. Ministers also agreed on a declaration on organised crime.

HOME affairs ministers made no visible progress on the dispute over the Europol Convention, with British Minister Michael Howard insisting it was neither necessary nor appropriate to give the European Court of Justice legal supervision over Europol. However, ministers approved a document defining the rights and duties of the liaison officers linking Europol with the national police forces in the member countries.

MINISTERS discussed their working programme for the next four presidencies, with several arguing that the Council should focus on a few clearly-defined priority issues to achieve maximum progress. Coreper and the K4 committee were instructed to submit a draft for a working programme to the next Internal Affairs Council on 4-5 June.

STRICTER controls are to be introduced to combat football hooliganism. Ministers agreed to put fans under closer surveillance ahead of the European championships this summer. Following a UK proposal, they decided to exchange information on troublemakers, and to trace their movements before the championships.