JHA: MINISTERS REVIEW COUNTER-TERROR

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 005128 SIPDIS DHS FOR IAO, BORDER PATROL DOJ FOR CRM ROME ALSO FOR INS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PTER CMGT CVIS KCRM EUN USEU BRUSSELS SUBJECT: JHA: MINISTERS REVIEW COUNTER-TERROR MEASURES SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. The EU Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers (JHA Council) on December 2 agreed on a series of documents relating to the fight against terrorism in preparation for the December 17 European Council. These include a strategy against the financing of terrorism, a report on intelligence capacity, conclusions on prevention, preparedness and response to terrorist attacks, and an EU solidarity program on the consequences of terrorist threats and attacks. In other justice issues, the Council agreed on the main body of a draft Decision on the exchange of information from national criminal records. Ministers also concurred on a general approach for the exchange of information and cooperation concerning terrorist offences, and defined guidelines for a piece of EU legislation requiring telecom service providers to retain data defined in a common list. Full text of Council conclusions has been transmitted to EUR/ERA and Embassy The Hague. END SUMMARY. EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION FROM CRIMINAL RECORDS -------------- ¶2. The December 2 JHA Council agreed on the main provisions of a draft Decision on the exchange of information from criminal records. The draft, tabled in reaction to a cross-border serial killer case that revealed failures in communication between French and Belgian authorities, requires each central authority of a Member State to inform without delay the central authorities of the other Member States of criminal convictions and subsequent measures in respect of nationals of those countries entered in their criminal records. "Furthermore, a central authority may request information from the criminal records of another Member State. The reply shall be sent immediately and in any event within a period not exceeding ten working days from the receipt of the request, under certain conditions." The preamble and forms to be annexed to the draft Decision will be discussed at a later stage. ¶3. EU sources noted that criminal convictions in EU countries are recorded by using a variety of procedures in registers. Exchange mechanisms do exist for the transmission of information between countries, e.g. under the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, but they fail to meet the requirements of cooperation in a frontier-free area. Recent pedophilia cases highlighted the malfunctioning of these systems. Likewise, the fight against terrorism requires the quality of these exchanges to be improved quickly. TERRORISM: PREPARATION OF EU SUMMIT -------------- ¶4. EU leaders on December 17 will adopt a number of strategies, prepared in response to mandates from the June 2004 European Council conclusions, including on combating the financing of terrorism as well as the protection of critical infrastructures. The leaders will discuss proposals on integrating the fight against terrorism into the EU's external relations policy, an assessment of CT provisions in EU agreements, and a "Conceptual Framework" on the contribution of ESDP to the fight against terrorism. Dutch Justice Minister Donner said the JHA Council agreed to forward to the leaders, through the channel of EU FMs (GAERC),a series of documents (not publicly available, unless otherwise indicated below with source of publication and ref. number): -A revised Action Plan on combating terrorism; -A strategy on the fight against the financing of terrorism, to be reviewed by Ministers for the Economy and Finance on December 7 and the GAERC on December 13; -A report on intelligence capacity. Dutch Interior Minister Remkes told a press conference it was "vital" for EU countries to discuss cooperation between their intelligence agencies. Remkes said all delegations were "convinced of the need to work together on this." The EU SitCen located in the Council Secretariat would be "expanded and reinforced." Ministers asked their representatives at the EUROPOL management board to agree at their next meeting on December 14 on an exchange of letters with SG/HighRep Solana; -Conclusions on Prevention, Preparedness and Response to Terrorist Attacks (in draft at http://register.consilium.eu.int, doc #15232/04); -An EU solidarity program on the consequences of the terrorist threats and attacks: a revised/widened Chemical, Bacteriological, Radiological and Nuclear program (idem, doc #15480/04). ¶5. The Council also noted: - An interim report on the peer evaluation of national anti-terrorism arrangements (not available). The 15 Member States evaluated (former EU-15) will report by June 2005 on measures taken with regard to the recommendations of the report; -A document on the recruitment of terrorists (n/a). ¶6. Council discussions focused on: a) Information sharing: the Conclusions refer to the "principle of availability" highlighted in the new multiannual JHA program ("The Hague program," see USEU BRUSSELS 4789 and USEU Brussels 4619), noting work underway on other proposals, including the Decision on the exchange of information and co- operation concerning terrorist offences (below). b) Combating the financing of terrorism: the conclusions note the "significant progress" recorded on the third money laundering Directive and the Regulation on cash movements. Action is also needed to meet other recommendations in the strategy, including with respect to the freezing of terrorist assets; c) Civil protection and critical infrastructure: the Member States, Commission and Council will have "to enhance the quality of their risk assessment and analysis, to strengthen the political and operational preparedness and capability for consequence management, to increase learning, training and exercises as well as to examine questions of interoperability." The Member States and Commission will "contribute to the ongoing assessment of capabilities available at the European level and to obtain and share, on a restricted basis, information on relevant vaccines, sera and other medical resources, that might be made available in the event of a major terrorist attack"; d) Recruitment and radicalization: "Action to combat terrorism cannot succeed in the longer term if no action is taken to try to limit recruitment into terrorism." The Hague program calls on the Council, with the EU CT Coordinator, the Commission and Member State experts, to develop, by the end of 2005, a long-term strategy to address the factors contributing to radicalization and recruitment for terrorist activities. ¶7. The Council conclusions as well as Coordinator de Vries and Commissioner Frattini in their public comments stressed the importance of implementation of measures agreed by the EU: "Member States still retain full responsibility for ensuring they have in place appropriate national structures and instruments to enable them to achieve the underlying objective: to combat terrorism effectively." EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION ON TERRORIST OFFENCES -------------- ¶8. The Council agreed on "a general approach" of a Decision on the exchange of information and cooperation concerning terrorist offences. The draft is designed to reinforce a December 2002 Decision concerning the implementation of specific measures for police and judicial cooperation to combat terrorism. According to the draft, each Member State "shall designate a specialized service within its police services or other law enforcement authorities that will have access to and collect all relevant information concerning and resulting from criminal investigations conducted by its law enforcement authorities with respect to terrorist offences, and send it to Europol." Each Member State will also designate a national correspondent for terrorism matters or an appropriate judicial or other competent authority that will have access to and can collect all relevant information concerning prosecutions and convictions for terrorist offences, and send it to Eurojust, the EU body established in 2002 to enhance the effectiveness of investigation and prosecution of serious cross-border and organized crime. RETENTION OF DATA BY TELECOM SERVICE PROVIDERS -------------- - ¶9. The Council discussed the scope of a draft Framework Decision, tabled in light of the March 2004 EU Declaration on combating terrorism, requiring providers of publicly available electronic communications services or networks to retain specified data to allow for the source, routing, destination, time, date and duration of communications to be established. In its original form, the proposal appeared to be limited to data already processed and stored for billing, commercial and other legitimate purposes. However, as noted in the Council conclusions, "the approach would imply that the possibilities for access to data for law enforcement purposes depend on the technical and commercial setup of each individual service provider." Some service providers, as Minister Donner noted, apply a "flat rate system," implying that relevant data, processed for the purpose of providing the telecommunication concerned, is erased immediately after the communication is terminated. Donner said the Council therefore went for another option and tasked its preparatory bodies to work on a proposal requiring service providers to retain relevant data defined in a common list. Donner said the proposal would bear in mind a requirement of "proportionality" of the measure in relation to costs, data protection and efficiency. EUROPEAN EVIDENCE WARRANT: PROGRESS REPORT -------------- ¶10. The Council noted a progress report concerning negotiations on a draft Framework Decision on the European Evidence Warrant (EEW) for obtaining objects, documents and data for use in proceedings in criminal matters. The proposal was designed as a first step toward a single mutual recognition instrument that would in due course replace all existing mutual assistance regimes. MEASURES AGAINST SHIP-SOURCE POLLUTION -------------- ¶11. The Greek, Cypriot and Maltese delegations continued to block adoption of a draft Framework Decision to strengthen the criminal law framework for the enforcement of the law against ship-source pollution. Donner said the Presidency would continue to work on a compromise solution with the hope of reaching agreement by the year's end. MCKINLEY