EU ministers to tackle German data-sharing proposals
EU justice and interior ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday (15 February) are set for lengthy talks with three highly controversial issues on their agenda - the transfer of prisoners between EU states, an overhaul of data-sharing rules and environmental crimes.
Germany, the current EU presidency, is to try and broker a deal on the so-called transfer of prisoners proposal, which would allow a sentenced person to serve their sentence in their home country or country of residence.
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But the proposal – originally set for adoption last December - suffered another defeat at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday as Poland insisted on at least a partial opt-out from the project.
According to one diplomat, Warsaw is worried about its prison capacity and additional expenses, as thousands of Poles live abroad.
Germany put forward a compromise solution that would see Poland get a five-year derogation from the scheme, but France and the Netherlands are against it.
"France and the Netherlands have raised objections because they don't want any break-away people from this initiative," an EU diplomat said, underlining "all the other countries already signed up to this in December," with the ground now set for a strong battle of words between the two sides.
Police cooperation and Migration
Berlin is also set to table a formal proposal to transpose the so-called Prüm Treaty into EU law-books, a move that would translate into the sharing of personal information such as DNA, national police operating across borders and even air marshals boarding foreign planes.
The aim is to examine to what extent the current seven-nation pact between Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Spain could be put into EU framework, one German diplomat said, as some countries are reluctant to approve one-to-one transposition of the treaty.
The UK and Ireland are leading the camp which views the Prüm Treaty with mistrust being concerned over foreign police officers possibly operating on their domestic soil and armed air marshals boarding their planes.
In addition to this, EU interior ministers will once again feel the pressure to step up the fight against illegal immigrants, with EU commissioner Franco Frattini set to name and shame those EU governments failing to comply with his recent request to strengthen the bloc's border security agency Frontex.
At the end of January Mr Frattini called on the 27-nation union "to ensure that appropriate technical equipment is made available to the maximum extent possible."
Frontex, responsible for protecting Europe against illegal migrants, needs aircraft, helicopters, vessels and other equipment for marine operations by no later then April, when a new wave of migrants is expected to hit EU southern and south-eastern borders (Canary Islands, Lampedusa, Malta) due to favourable weather conditions.
Legal wrangling over environmental crimes
Commissioner Frattini will also use the day to inform ministers about his latest piece of legislation aimed at harmonizing what constitutes serious environmental crimes and what the minimum level of penalties should be across Europe.
This attempt to move into an area of national governments' criminal law is facing opposition in a number of member states, who are questioning its legal base.
According to diplomats, Brussels took full advantage of a ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2005 which they used to pave the way into EU penalties for environmental crime.
The bloc's top court said that while criminal law does not actually fall within Brussels' powers, if member states see criminal penalties as essential for fighting environmental offences, then the commission is also entitled to take similar measures.
This would "ensure that the rules which it lays down on environmental protection are fully effective", the ruling said.
"We have to examine what is the European Commission's real competency", diplomats say, arguing the court did not grant Brussels power to impose its own criminal sanctions.