Motion for a resolution - B6-0625/2006Motion for a resolution
B6-0625/2006
European Parliament

MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION

24.11.2006

further to Question for Oral Answer B6‑0428/2006
pursuant to Rule 108(5) of the Rules of Procedure
by Jean-Marie Cavada
on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs
on the progress made in the EU towards the Area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) (Articles 2 and 39 of the EU Treaty)

Procedure : 2006/2610(RSP)
Document stages in plenary
Document selected :  
B6-0625/2006
Texts tabled :
B6-0625/2006
Debates :
Votes :
Texts adopted :

B6‑0625/2006

European Parliament resolution on the progress made in the EU towards the Area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) (Articles 2 and 39 of the EU Treaty)

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to Article 2 of the EU Treaty which sets the Union the objective of maintaining and developing itself as an area of freedom, security and justice,

–  having regard to Article 39 of the EU Treaty which instructs Parliament to hold a debate on the progress made in this area,

–  having regard to the answers given by the Council at the debate of 27 September 2006 to Oral Question B6-0428/2006, and to the Commission’s presentation of its communications reporting on the implementation of the Hague programme and future prospects,

–  having regard to the debates held at the parliamentary meeting of 2 and 3 October 2006, organised in conjunction with the Finnish Parliament,

–  having regard to Rule 108(5) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.  whereas in a world which is more and more globalised and subject to crises and persistent tensions, economic inequalities and constantly growing migratory flows, ideological and cultural confrontations which affect a growing number of individuals, and terrorist threats whose scope can only be guessed at, the demand of European citizens for the right to enjoy greater freedom, security and justice within the Union is constantly increasing,

B.  whereas seven years after Tampere conclusions, the European Union does not have a coherent immigration policy, and in particular lacks a legal-migration policy,

C.  noting that these external pressure factors

  • -could not have been taken into account in 1999 by the European Council when it adopted the first Tampere Programme, and that these factors have not been adequately taken into account since the establishment of the Hague Programme in November 2004,
  • -are already something that Member States cannot control, and which will become very difficult for the Union itself to control, unless the latter rapidly equips itself with the wherewithal to realise its ambitions, and becomes a credible spokesman for the policies linked to the AFSJ vis-à-vis other international organisations such as the United Nations[1] or, at regional level, the African Union with regard to migration and development policies or, on the European continent itself, without more structured cooperation with the Council of Europe and its bodies responsible for promoting the rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights[2],

D.  whereas, given the absence of a consistent acquis and shared positions amongst its Member States, the EU is not in a position to exercise any serious influence, in the fields of AFSJ, on the position of third countries, including its allies such as the USA, and that this could affect its credibility, in addition to forcing it to yield political and strategic initiative to those countries,

E.  whereas this strategic weakness at EU level is not only due to the fact that these politics have only recently been moved to EU level[3] but, above all, to the fact that this move was made in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, with many reservations on the part of the Member States, and whereas the move to the ordinary legislative regime provided for as early as 1993 has taken place only by limited progress in 1999, 2001, 2004 and finally 2005 with the (partial) activation, thanks to the Hague Plan, of the ‘passerelle’ provided for by Article 67 of the TEC,

F.  recalling that even today the proliferation of legal bases for a single political objective, the proliferation of jurisdictional conflicts and appeals to define the scope of the institutions’ powers, the unanimity rule and, above all, the absence of genuine democratic and jurisdictional control all make the current situation of the third pillar policies extremely fragile from the point of view of EU respect for the principles on which it claims to be founded (Article 6 TEU),

G.  warning against the risks of pursuing outside the European Treaties the development of topics which are already the subject of proposals put forward by the EU institutions; wishing to launch an open debate based on fair cooperation amongst the EU institutions and with the Member States’ parliaments concerning the incorporation of the Prüm Treaty into the Community Treaty, in order to enable Parliament to exercise democratic control,

H.  noting that the Member States are more aware than anyone of the deficiencies of this situation from a democratic, jurisdictional and indeed operational point of view and that, by signing the Constitutional Treaty, they have committed themselves to making obligatory from November 2006 what was in the Maastricht Treaty merely an acknowledged option open to the Council,

I.  convinced that activating the ‘passerelles’ provided for by Articles 67 TEC and 42 TEU is not only appropriate to the current constitutional situation but also compatible with the constitutional situation of the future, and that in consequence, the Council should also be activating it under the aegis of Article 18 of the Vienna Convention, which commits its signatories to cooperating sincerely to create the most favourable conditions with a view to future ratification,

J.  endorsing the proposal by the Court of Justice that during 2007 the ‘passerelles’ provided for by Article 67 TEC (by eliminating the restrictions on the Court’s jurisdiction with regard to matters falling under Title IV of the TEC) and Article 42 TEU, as already recommended to the European Council on 14.10.04 by the European Parliament[4],

K.  recalling that the activation of the ‘passerelle’ leaves the possibility open for the Council to decide on its voting conditions and that in this context various solutions could be found to preserve unanimity in certain cases and/or for specific periods, providing that, in any event in all matters affecting European citizens’ rights, there was EP codecision, and that the EP could not be viewed as having less decisive weight than the smallest Member State,

L.  whereas the ‘passerelles’ activated on the basis of the existing Treaties are already consistent with the framework imposed by the Constitutional Treaty and do not go beyond what the latter provides for (e.g. with regard to migration policy quotas),

M.  whereas it is also essential that it be defined what the ‘passerelles’ should be leading to, and that if fresh objectives cannot be added to the existing Treaties, it would be more than timely to provide, in the two years to come, for a consolidation/simplification of the Union acquis in the field of AFSJ, as it has gradually been shaped hitherto by cooperation between Member States, particularly since the Maastricht Treaty. Such consolidation and simplification should aim to eliminate the numerous inconsistencies and, as far as possible, make the acquis of enhanced cooperation (see Schengen) as widespread as possible,

N.  having regard to the strong demand from citizens and practitioners for an improvement in practical cooperation, as the Treaties stand at present, as well as from the Council, within which, to date, there has been no agreement enabling genuine progress to be made with this cooperation,

O.  whereas the new Member States which meet the Schengen criteria and are in a position to enter the system must not be unfairly penalised on account of significant delays in the implementation of SIS II (Second-Generation Schengen Information System),

P.  whereas the European Parliament has demonstrated remarkable speed and a noteworthy spirit of compromise in having secured an agreement at first reading on the three legislative texts which constitute the package relating to the legal basis for SIS II,

1.  Calls on the Commission to submit to the Council in 2007 the draft Decision activating Article 42 TEU and bringing the provisions concerning police (including EUROPOL) and judicial cooperation on criminal matters (including EUROJUST) into the Community sphere (Title IV TEC);

2.  Calls on the Council:

  • -to adopt as a matter of urgency, in keeping with Parliament’s opinion, the draft Decision based on Article 67(2) TEC with regard to removing the restrictions on the powers of the Court of Justice in the context of Title IV of the TEC and to do everything to speed up the handling of preliminary rulings in AFSJ matters;
  • -to provide for extending codecision with Parliament and qualified majority voting in Council to all areas where this is in keeping with the Treaties currently in force, such as legal immigration or integration of third-country nations, as planned in 2004 by the Dutch Council Presidency;

3.  Calls on the European Council to issue guidelines to the Council and Commission to:

(a)  refocus European legislation around the fundamental requirement of ensuring a high level of protection of fundamental rights within the Union and, where individual rights are involved, not to limit themselves to issues of a cross-border nature only. In this context, the EP should be able to benefit from the expertise and support of the future Fundamental Rights Agency;

(b)  take steps to strengthen the protection of the founding principles of the EU (Article 6 TEU) and of the early warning and penalty mechanisms provided for in Article 7 of the TEU. The case law of the European Courts, the Constitutional Courts, and the inquiries launched both at Council of Europe and EP level are enough to show that observance of those principles must be a constant concern for Member States and for EU institutions and that the former must set themselves public reference criteria for improving the quality of justice and police cooperation; in this context, activating the alert procedure provided for by Article 7(1) of the TEU should be one of the normal mutual assistance measures necessary for ensuring a high level of protection for the principles laid down in Article 6 of the TEU;

(c)  meet the call for genuine improvement of practical cooperation through strengthening and harmonising the present powers of Eurojust and its national members, in particular by conferring a genuine power to coordinate investigations and prosecutions, a power to have prosecutions initiated, and help settle disputes over competence, and by conferring on Europol the power to organise and coordinate investigations and operational actions jointly with Member States’ competent authorities in joint investigation teams; each year, national parliaments and the European Parliament should discuss progress made and problems encountered with this type of activity and check whether adjustments are needed to national and European legislation;

(d)  make sure that a surveillance state is not created via European legislation and that public authorities’ interference in the exercise of individual liberties is strictly limited and subject to periodic review involving the European Parliament and national parliaments;

(e)  make good the current deficit within European legislation with regard to handling of confidential data when the latter are held by the EU institutions; provide, accordingly, for revision of Article 9 of Regulation 1049/01 and for the setting up within the EP of a committee to monitor confidential activities;

(f)  promote, through the adoption of Council recommendations, the implementation in the Member States of the principles/recommendations of the COE’s Secretary-General with regard to applying Article 52 of the European Convention on Human Rights as regards parliamentary oversight over intelligence services (see in particular the future recommendations of the parliamentary committee tasked with considering the CIA flights issue);

4.  Calls upon the Council to submit to Parliament without undue delay the guideline which it is currently devising on the subject of the draft Framework Decision on the protection of personal data processed in connection with police and legal cooperation in criminal matters; warns against the risk of draining that proposal of its substance and recalls the undertakings given by the Council concerning Parliament’s political involvement in the adoption of the Framework Decision;

5.  Invites the national parliaments to ascertain as soon as possible the impact at national level of the new provisions contemplated by the Council as regards data protection and application of the principle that databases of data processed for security purposes must be accessible and interlinked; states now that it is interested in taking account of the results of that verification in the opinions it will deliver to the Council on these issues;

6.  Urges the Commission to publish every year a report on the activities of the group of Commissioners in charge of fundamental rights; also urges the Commission to provide as soon as possible an overview of the activities and decisions taken by the above-mentioned group during the last two-and-a-half years;

7.  Believes that it is essential that when it comes to policies as sensitive as those connected with fundamental rights, immigration and increased security, the EU institutions should not seek to replace the Member States but to play a complementary role. It would also be necessary to ensure that the communitarisation of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters went hand in hand with a certain right of scrutiny:

(a)  both as regards the Member States’ current right of legislative initiative (the Council could commit itself to asking the Commission, under Article 208 of the TEC to submit legislative proposals in areas indicated by a quarter of the Member States),

(b)  and in order to allow the national parliaments to adopt positions on the proposals in question in the field of AFSJ. They currently have a six week deadline before the Council decides on a given proposal. The European Parliament could commit itself not to reach an agreement at first reading with the Council before the six week deadline has elapsed;

8.  Recalls the need to maintain a certain consistency as regards legislative powers at EU level by providing, for example, for immigration legislation not to be limited to illegal immigration only, but to cover legal immigration too;

9.  As far as the interim PNR agreement with the US is concerned, expresses its deep concern at the US letter of interpretation of the agreement which shows that the US authorities have an interpretation going beyond the content of the agreement, in particular as regards the purpose of the agreement, access by US agencies and bodies to the PNR data and the number of data fields that can be consulted;

10.  Urges the Council to adopt without delay the draft Framework Decision on procedural rights in criminal proceedings throughout the European Union (COM(2004)0328), taking due consideration of the opinion adopted by the European Parliament on 12 April 2005 (T6-0091/2005);

11.  Reiterates the need, as foreseen at Tampere in 1999:

  • -to apply the principle of mutual recognition across the board, so as to make it the keystone of EU legislation;
  • -subsequently to strengthen access to justice, as provided for by the proposals concerning civil mediation, small claims and payment orders;
  • -provide for legislative harmonisation measures only after an impact assessment concerning fundamental rights, involving national parliaments in the process;

12.  Affirms the need to preserve, even when communitarising the third pillar and without prejudice to the Commission’s prerogatives, the right of the Member States to help one another and to carry out reciprocal monitoring, as is already the case for Schengen cooperation and for the fight against terrorism;

13.  Supports the recent Commission communication seeking to establish an AFSJ policy evaluation system, and recalls that the evaluation should:

(a)  be the subject of an annual communication to the European Parliament, so that the latter can debate it, in accordance with the Treaties, and involving the national parliaments in that debate;

(b)  further involve the representatives of civil society and the academic world in evaluating the impact of AFSJ-linked policies and measures;

14.  Believes, finally, that the noblest of objectives would remain mere good intentions if they are not backed up by adequate human and financial resources:

(a)  implementing at EU level the principle of solidarity and sincere cooperation, including financial cooperation between Member States;

(b)  adapting the powers of the European agencies (Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, Olaf, CEPOL, etc.) so as to enable them to implement the strategic priorities established by the Member States at EU level;

(c)  making it possible to prevent and tackle civil crisis situations with international repercussions. Here, there already exists a certain amount of expertise at Commission and Council secretariat-general level for pooling human, technical and financial resources at very short notice;

15.  Calls upon the Commission to endeavour to speed up the process of implementing the second-generation Schengen Information System, to keep the European Parliament informed regarding the advances made in the process and to submit justifications relating to delays which have already occurred and to any further delays which may occur in the future;

16.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the European Council, the Council, the Commission and the Governments and Parliaments of the Member States.

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