Peers criticise ‘secretive’ EU meetings
Key policies on tackling crime and immigration across the EU are being made behind closed doors with little opportunity for scrutiny, peers warn today.
The Lords EU committee on foreign affairs says plans by the union’s six largest countries – the G6 – to share fingerprint data with the security services are being prepared without sufficient regard for data protection safeguards.
It warns some of the plans are legally questionable but the lack of information about the conclusions means parliament and the public are not properly able to scrutinise them.
And while the committee says the G6 has a right to meet separately from the other 19 EU states on common issues, it accuses them of being “extraordinarily patronising” to other members by coming up with plans that are against EU policy.
However, a Home Office spokeswoman said the importance of the G6 should not be “overstated”, saying it was an informal discussion group with no formal decision-making powers.
And she denied claims the group was overly secretive, saying a press conference was held after each session and conclusions were published by the host nation. A statement from the autumn meeting, to be held in the UK, would be on the Home Office website.
In March, home affairs ministers from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland met at the German resort of Heiligendamm, where they discussed the key issues of terrorism, integration and illegal immigration, and drugs and organised crime.
A statement of conclusions was published after the meeting, but only on the website of the host country’s interior ministry – in German. The Home Office told the committee it did not believe this was a problem.
However, today’s report says the UK minister should report back to parliament on any future discussions of the G6, the information should be made public by the government, and all papers should be circulated to the relevant select committees.
One of the conclusions reached in March was to allow police access to the Eurodac database of fingerprints, which was set up specifically to deal with asylum applications, and to the visa information system (Visa), which contains data on visa applications.
The EU Commission is considering this last proposal, but only after new measures on data protection are agreed, and today’s report expresses concern that the G6 proposals do not take this need for proper safeguards seriously enough.
The EU hopes to introduce the ‘principle of availablity’, which would allow police and prosecuting authorities across the union to demand information from other member states, but only alongside a new directive on protecting such information.
But the G6 statement said: “The ministers underscored that rapid implementation of the availability principle must not depend on the adoption of a framework decision on data protection in the third pillar.”
The Lords committee warns: “The exchange of information between the law enforcement authorities is important, but not so important that civil rights can be eroded.”
