Europol stymied over paedophile database

Date: 27/03/1997

By Simon Coss

THE desperately slow progress being made by member states towards ratifying the Europol convention means a proposed EU-wide database on paedophilia may not come online until the end of the decade, warn officials at the fledgling criminal intelligence agency.

“I would be being very optimistic if I were to say everything will be in place in three years' time,” said one. “We are exactly where we were last autumn when the EU ministers proposed creating a register of missing children and paedophiles.”

Until the convention has been ratified, with the relevant rules on data protection and transnational information exchanges approved by all 15 member state parliaments, Europol cannot set up the database.

Critics argue that while ministers - stung into action by the Belgian paedophilia scandal - were quick to say something must be done, they have not provided Europol with the resources to do it.

The database will be the centrepiece of any Europe-wide approach to the problem, which has captured headlines once again this month following the discovery of the body of another murdered child - Loubna Benaïssa - in a Brussels garage.

But Europol says some progress could be made in the meantime if it were given more resources to enable it to coordinate better information-sharing between national police forces.

“When ministers say they want to tackle child exploitation, they say it with words, not in money and personnel,” said one official.

The agency's pessimism about the timetable for ratification is not universally shared: at last December's summit in Dublin, all 15 EU leaders agreed that they would like to see the convention in place by the end of this year.

However, given the fact that many member states have serious issues to resolve over the agency - notably questions about data protection and information-sharing - that seems, at best, optimistic.

The European Drugs Unit (EDU), currently the only fully functioning part of Europol, could provide a blueprint for the kind of 'stop-gap' measures the agency is calling for.

Set up under the authority of a special agreement between justice and home affairs ministers of the 15 member states in the summer of 1993, the EDU's powers were extended in 1995 to cover not only drug-related crimes but also money-laundering, illegal trafficking in nuclear and radioactive material, clandestine immigration networks and vehicle trafficking.

However, the agreement setting up the EDU was limited and specifically excluded the sort of personal data which would be needed to set up any useful register of paedophiles. Highly sensitive information of this nature will almost certainly only be made available once the convention has been ratified by member states.

Ironically, the only country which has so far ratified the convention is the UK, which is blamed by other member states for the length and difficulty of negotiations over the Europol accord. London had serious reservations about the role of the European Court of Justice in the agency's work and a final deal was only thrashed out at the June 1996 EU summit in Florence.

For the European Commission, which sees Europol as vital for the improvement of police cooperation in the Union, progress in ratifying the convention cannot come too soon. But there is not a great deal it can do to hurry the process along given that, under the Maastricht Treaty, justice and home affairs policy is a matter for intergovernmental cooperation, severely restricting the Commission's role.

It is, however, keeping up the pressure. “We can keep kicking shins. My Commissioner stresses the importance of ratifying the convention at every opportunity,” said a spokeswoman for Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin.