Commission says it will fight to have justice vetoes lifted

The European Commission has admitted it will have a fight on its hands to get member states to lift their vetoes on justice issues. "We have had some resistance, to be honest," Commission President José Manuel Barroso said yesterday (28 June) at the publication of the plan to give the EU more powers on police and judicial co-operation.

Germany, Ireland and Slovakia have expressed doubts to the Commission about the 'bridging clause' which would see certain justice matters come under community law rather than intergovernmental law. This would mean greater involvement of the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the possibility of using qualified majority voting, instead of unanimity.

But both Barroso and Franco Frattini, the commissioner for justice, freedom and security, insisted vetoes should be abandoned to allow them to address the security concerns of citizens.

Barroso said that despite some governments' resistance the Commission had "strong support from the European Parliament and public opinion".

"We understand it is a sensitive issue", Barroso said, while Frattini referred to "traditional national jealousies" over justice matters.

"We don't expect agreement immediately but we hope the debate will give more arguments for those countries with doubts to come on board," Barroso said.

The Commission has been prompted to propose using the bridging clause following stiff opposition among some justice ministers to certain proposals. A plan to speed up and make easier the collection and transfer of evidence between member states was blocked in the Council for three years before being approved earlier this month. A proposal to introduce minimum standards for suspects is still blocked in the Council.

But the bridging clause will be subject to the approval of all 25 member states and will then have to be ratified by national parliaments. In some cases, such as France, there will be a need to change national constitutions.

Because the German parliament has already ratified the constitutional treaty - which goes even further than the bridging clause on police and judicial co-operation on criminal matters - the idea of ratifying a specific plan on this is not going down well in Berlin.

But there is another reason why the proposal is opposed. Germany and Ireland believe the constitution was agreed as a package and while they may not have particularly liked the idea of lifting their vetoes on justice matters there were other clauses in the treaty that they felt went their way. Despite the fact that the 1998 Amsterdam treaty allowed for this bridging clause, long before the now derailed EU constitution, both states are adamant that it should not be adopted separately from the constitution.

The Commission published three other communications on how the EU could make progress on justice matters. One involved allowing a national court where a case is initially taken to refer points of interpretation of EU law to the ECJ when the case involves co-operation in civil matters, asylum, immigration, visas and the free movement of people. This means citizens would be able to get a quicker and less costly judgement on EU-wide law from the ECJ than currently exists in most countries, where only the highest national court can refer such cases.

The Commission also reported on the progress on implementation of what member states agreed to achieve in the area of justice, freedom and security and proposed a mechanism for evaluation of EU policies in these areas. Frattini said the adoption of EU decisions into national law was slow and while he did not believe in "naming and shaming" governments it was "very important to help and encourage member states to implement key measures". Only five states - Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain - have implemented a framework decision on combating child porno-graphy and only Spain has imple-mented a decision, taken four years ago, on cross-border investi-gation teams.

The European Commission has admitted it will have a fight on its hands to get member states to lift their vetoes on justice issues. "We have had some resistance, to be honest," Commission President José Manuel Barroso said yesterday (28 June) at the publication of the plan to give the EU more powers on police and judicial co-operation.