EU experts reject call for extradition deal with US

Date: 13/02/1997

CALLS for a single EU-US extradition treaty have been shot down before getting off the ground in recent discussions between Union justice experts.

The idea surfaced after EU member states agreed last year to apply a single set of flexible rules to handling extradition requests from one another. Diplomats say that American officials asked informally whether a similar deal might not be extended to the US, replacing and simplifying the 15 individual bilateral treaties already in place.

But the answer appears to be an unequivocal no, both in legal and political terms.

Technically, the EU as an entity cannot strike a deal with anybody since it has no legal personality. It is still far from clear whether this year's Intergovernmental Conference will decide to change that.

Nevertheless, it would be feasible for all member states to sign identical bilateral treaties with the US, say experts, creating de facto a common European face. But a number of Union governments are refusing to contemplate the idea, fearing that existing difficulties within the EU would be magnified to such a extent in any similar arrangement with the US that the whole exercise would be more trouble than it was worth.

Considering the ink is barely dry on the text of last year's deal, and member states have yet to ratify that, an EU-US treaty certainly seems premature.

The intra-EU accord was only possible because all the participants nominally share the same democratic values, including a fundamental objection to capital punishment. As a result, they were able to relax rules designed to protect citizens from hard-line regimes. Some parts of the US, on the other hand, do apply the death penalty.

Diplomatic sources say Union member states which still have difficulties in extraditing their own nationals within the EU would be extremely reluctant to reduce legal safeguards vis-à-vis the US.

The Dutch presidency intends to organise a meeting with American counterparts later this year to explain how the EU Extradition Convention works, but a single transatlantic deal will not be on the agenda.