26-27 May Justice and Home Affairs Council

Date: 05/06/1997

MINISTERS agreed to further coordinate their efforts to tackle 'designer drugs' such as ecstasy. They reached political agreement to set up a “joint action concerning the information exchange, risk assessment and the control of new synthetic drugs”. The plan will have three broad aims: to monitor new trends in the traffic and use of designer drugs within the EU member states, to identify quickly the potential risk posed by any newly discovered substances, and to decide what further action should be taken. The Europol Drugs Unit (EDU) and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) will play key coordinating roles in the joint action.

MEMBERS of staff at the fledgling European police agency Europol should be granted diplomatic immunity, the Council agreed. Ministers reached a political accord on a protocol giving diplomatic privileges to the agency's member organisations, its directors and its agents. The protocol will have to be ratified by all 15 national parliaments before being formally adopted, and will not come into force until the main Europol convention has been approved by national legislatures. At present, only the UK and Denmark have done this, although Spain is expected to complete the process soon.

JUSTICE and home affairs ministers also gave the go-ahead for a 20&percent; increase in the budget for the EDU - the only part of Europol which is currently fully operational. The unit will have 6,722,000 ecu to pay for its activities in 1998. Ministers said that the increase was justified because of the increased workload predicted for the EDU during the coming year. The Council also approved a further 3,260,000 ecu which will be used to set up the planned Europol database.

THE Council noted that following Ireland's recent ratification of the agreement, the 1990 Dublin Convention should hopefully be able to enter into force before the end of the year. The convention - drawn up between the then 12 members of the European Community - aims to prevent the practice of so-called 'asylum shopping' by third country refugees by agreeing rules on which member states are responsible for handling asylum applications. The three newest EU member states, Finland, Austria and Sweden, will be allowed to apply the convention at a later date as their parliaments still have to ratify the agreement. Spanish reservations over the composition of an adjudication committee which would arbitrate in cases where member states were unable to agree on who should handle a particular application were also overcome.