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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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