EU bids for more security powers

06 March 2010

Emboldened by the Lisbon Treaty, Brussels is making an ambitious grab for more surveillance powers, writes Stephen Gardner. Plans for amassing data on individuals and making it available across the continent are contained in an "internal security strategy for the European Union," which has been approved by justice ministers. The strategy foresees a change in the way data held by Inspector Knacker and his security friends will be shared. This has been done on a need-to-know basis – authorities in one country can ask their counterparts in another for specific details on specific cases. But the upgraded "European security model" foresees "information exchange on a basis of mutual trust and culminating in the principle of information availability". In other words, restrictions on shared data will be the exception, rather than the rule. And more data is to be collected. Brussels wants a say in the "anticipation of crime", with plans to monitor health data, and information from schools and universities "in order to prevent young people from turning to crime". Such a significant incursion into what were considered nationally-sovereign areas (and even then questionable on privacy grounds) has been made possible by the Lisbon Treaty. At the heart of the security "vision" is a new body created by Lisbon, the Standing Committee on Operational Cooperation on Internal Security (inappropriately known as COSI). COSI will be set up within the EU Council, the most opaque of the EU institutions, and what it will actually do is unclear (Lisbon is vague). Oversight will be limited. According to the Treaty, the European Parliament will merely be "kept informed" of its operations. Britain has the right of opt-out when it comes to justice measures, but don't hold your breath. British officials in Brussels said the security strategy is "certainly something we can support". A European Commission action plan with more detailed proposals is expected within six months. +++ Confidence in the competence of Brussels when it comes to policing is certainly not boosted when even the European Commission admits that a central plank of its justice policy – the European arrest warrant – is not working. The arrest warrant allows quick-and-easy extradition within the EU, on the basis that EU membership means trials are fair in all 27 of the bloc's countries. But in reality the quality of judicial systems varies greatly from country to country, a point conceded by Jonathan Faull, the European Commission's top justice and security official, at a recent event organised by the Open Europe think tank. Had the European arrest warrant been successful? "Not very," Faull said. When it was introduced, the Commission had assumed there would be a "levelling-up" of rights, with the countries with weaker systems learning from the best, but this has not happened. In fact member states have blocked attempts to raise standards. Don't worry though. The Commission is working on it. Maybe things will improve. Eventually. A version of this article originally appeared in Private Eye.

 

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