The link is to a report by the House of Lords European Committee on the Prum Treaty,which is mainly concerned with the exchange of data across borders to combat terrorism illegal immigration and crime. The signatories are Benelux, Germany, Austria, Spain and France. I picked up its existence in a piece in Private Eye [21st December to 11th January] , the British satirical magazine, which alleges that the UK is signing up to a parallel treaty that doesnt include "hot pursuit" across borders.
I'm quite surprised to have missed this Treaty, but will be following it up!
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4 comments:
There's a Guardian piece at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1995239,00.html
This raises fears of "fishing expeditions" on databases as well as the legal position of undercover officers.
There's a further piece with links to other articles at:http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.12/prum-treaty-eu
The Prüm Treaty and the efforts to integrate it in the EU Third Pillar framework are two different things. (See for example http://www.ludoblock.eu/?p=3).
The January article in the Guardian is a completely uninformed alarmist piece in which different issues are mixed up serving the agenda of the quoted Tony Bunyan.
The agreement to which the UK has agreed is contained in the following document: http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/07/st11/st11896.en07.pdf
No cross border hot pursuits by armed officers (in fact not al all) , no fishing expeditions in databases (instead a hit-no-hit procedure based on indexes) and certainly no provisions on undercover officers (is negotiated in a completely different legal instrument).
Be careful when researching these issues based on newspaper articles. Sadly the knowledge of EU Third Pillar issues among most journalists is quite disappointing. As a consequence the only reliable sources are academic papers and the original Council documents.
Unfortunately, there appears to be a spate of alarmist material suddenly hitting the UK press. Thanks for the links. Cross-border police databases have long been an interest of mine, and I wrote the UK part of an AGIS report on the Commission's interest in a European Criminal Records database back in 2005. The full report was on the internet, and I must find the link to it.
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