Question No 5 by Sarah Ludford (H-0767/05)

Subject: The use of the Community framework for law enforcement purposes

Does the European Court of Justice judgment on the appropriateness of Community law for imposing criminal penalties (Case C-176/03, 13 September 2005) encourage the Council in the direction of using the Community framework rather than the unsatisfactory intergovernmental one for law enforcement measures? Is the UK Presidency exploring positively the potential to use Article 42 TEU for this purpose? How will it guard against fora like G5 and G8 and new Schengen developments further prejudicing transparent, democratic and comprehensive EU-wide cooperation? Will it at least keep the European and national parliaments informed about the evolution of intergovernmental negotiations and future plans?