The Justice and Home Affairs meeting of the Council of the European Union (EU) on June 9 and 10 – attended from the UK by Justice minister Ken Clarke and Home Secretary Theresa May – ranged over terrorism and other criminal matters.
Proposed are โenhanced screeningโ for cargo originating from third countries with high risk and what the EU calls โa first framework and procedure for an EU risk assessment for air cargoโ. Also proposed is the sharing of threat and risk information between aviation security, intelligence, security and law enforcers. In a discussion paper by the EU Counter-Terrorism Co-ordinator Gilles de Kerchove, a Belgian former law professor, proposed among other things a โforum of policy makers and experts on transport and security to discuss the threat to transport facilities and to develop an action plan towards better integrated protection of all means of transport โ in particular in the area of land transportโ. He said: โThe EU security industry remains a highly fragmented internal market and Europe is in some key sectors more and more dependent on technologies produced in the USA or in Asia. The dialogue between stake-holders from the demand and supply sides of security, both at national level and EU level, is still in its early stages … โ Talking of research, the document spoke of finding ways to reduce the fragmentation in security related research (for example, by more standardisation on EU level). โWe should also further consider validation procedures and possible solutions like certification (in this context, the EU security label concept should be further examined).โ The paper also suggested โa better co-ordinated procurement process for security solutionsโ.
On organised crime, the meeting agreed on general priorities that included โthe fight against the production and distribution of drugs, including synthetic and psychoactive substances, the fight against drug trafficking, particularly from West Africa, the mitigation of the role of the Western Balkans in international crime, the fight against trafficking in human beings, the fight against organised crime groups that facilitate illegal immigration, the fight against mobile cross-border crime groups and the fight against cyber-crimeโ.
Talking of cyber-crime, the meeting spoke of talks with the European Parliament towards a law against โattacks against information systemsโ. New would be penalisation of the production and making available of tools (such as malicious software designed to create "botnets" or unrightfully obtained computer passwords) for committing the offences; illegal interception of computer data will become a criminal offence;improvement of European co-operation in criminal matters by strengthening the structure of 24/7 contact points, including an obligation to provide feedback within eight hours to urgent requests; and the obligation to collect basic statistical data on cyber-crimes. The meeting admitted that large scale cyber attacks, โincreasingly reported across Europeโ have the potential to severely damage public interests.
