Cool response to ‘EU-FBI’

Date: 18/03/1999

By Simon Coss

CONTROVERSIAL French plans to fight organised crime by setting up an FBI-style European police force backed up by an EU public prosecutor's office have received a mixed response.

Some Union governments have reacted warily to French Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou's proposals, outlined in a newspaper article earlier this month, arguing that they represent another step along the road to a federal Europe.

Guigou insists that the only way the Union can tackle organised crime is to put its intergovernmental agreements on police cooperation on a much firmer legal footing. "The first step must be a commonly agreed legal definition of the fight against organised crime," she argued.

Next, she said, the Union should set up a 'European Investigation Force', based on the current EU police office Europol. Its activities would be overseen by a team of magistrates appointed by member states. Guigou also said it would be necessary to create a "European public prosecutor's office, supported by a European judicial police force".

The French justice supremo will have to persuade all 15 EU governments to agree to her plan if it is to have a chance of success, as all proposals for new measures in the justice and home affairs field must be agreed unanimously.

But the British government is among those arguing that new Union agencies and laws are not needed to tackle the problems of cross-border crime, suggesting that significant progress can be made simply by increasing cooperation between national police forces and courts.

" Some of the ideas put forward by Elisabeth Guigou go a little further than we would like to go at the moment," said one UK diplomat.

The British seem particularly hostile to the idea of allowing Europol to carry out investigations under its own initiative. At present, the fledgling criminal intelligence agency only has a mandate to play a coordinating role in transnational police operations.

Guigou's aides say their boss is trying to encourage her EU counterparts to take a renewed interest in the debate about organised crime in Europe, believing the issue has been overshadowed recently by discussions on illegal immigration.

They say she is taking a long-term view of the question and doubts whether concrete legislation will see the light of day for "ten to 15 years".

Guigou is nevertheless hoping that her European counterparts will agree to study her suggestions and is eager to present a report on their deliberations to EU leaders at their special summit on justice and home affairs issues in the Finnish city of Tampere this October.

This is not the first time the idea of a Euro-FBI has been floated. Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl proposed a similar scheme in the early 1990s.