3 – 4 March: Justice and home affairs informal

Date: 09/03/2000

JUSTICE and home affairs ministers met in Lisbon to try to flesh out the conclusions agreed at the special 'law and order' summit of EU leaders in Tampere last October.

The European Commission presented a scoreboard of progress made in the field, which Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino said was currently full of gaps. The Portuguese Commissioner appealed to ministers to send the missing data and national experts to help the EU executive with its task. France said it would take the lead on money-laundering issues, Denmark on environment-related crime and Belgium and the Netherlands on football hooliganism. Vitorino promised to present a fuller progress report at a formal ministerial meeting on 27 March.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said recent events in Kosovo underlined the need for European countries to supply the province with more police. “If we do not manage to create law and order in Kosovo, it is likely to remain a source of political instability with far-reaching consequences for the EU as a whole,” said Solana. Denmark, Germany and several other member states promised to send more officers.

In a discussion on a future European police training academy, most member states favoured a two-stage approach. They agreed that as a first step, Union training colleges should organise a network to pool best practice and draw up common syllabuses. At a later stage a college would be established to train officers from across the continent. Only Italy favoured a fast-track approach, offering to host the academy in Rome and outlining plans for its operation.

Ministers discussed over lunch the UK's decision to allow former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to return home, with French Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou criticising the choice made by her British colleague Jack Straw.