Suchergebnisse

This book offers insight into the development of the EU in the areas of justice, home affairs and security, embedded in a broader international context. In addition to the main part, dedicated to the EU, the book features chapters on cooperation in the areas concerned at Benelux, Schengen, Council of Europe, NATO, OSCE, G7/G20, OECD and UN levels.The chapter structure is identical for all cooperation levels addressed, discussing their actual policies after sketching their historical development and institutional structure and functioning.For students and professionals in criminology, law and political science and for everyone interested in European and international criminal policy making this book will prove relevant or insightful.

A critical observer would not deny that the practice of European Union ('EU') policy making in the field of criminal law in the past decade since the implementation of the Tampere Programme has been mainly repressive and prosecution-oriented.1 The idea of introducing a set of common (minimum) rules, guaranteeing the rights of defence at a EU-wide level, has not been accorded the same attention as the introduction of instruments aimed at improving the effectiveness of crime-fighting. What does this mean for the future of EU criminal policy? Will the EU succeed in the coming years in developing an area where freedom, security and justice are truly balanced? According to several authors, to date the EU has evolved in the opposite direction. As one observer put it:[I]f Procedural Criminal Law arises from the application of Constitutional Law, or indeed if it may be described as "a seismograph of the constitutional system of a State", then as a consequence the Procedural Criminal Law of the European Union shows the extent of the Democratic Rule of Law, of the existence of a true "Rechtsstaat", within an integrated Europe. This situation may be qualified as lamentable, as the main plank of the EU's criminal justice policy relates to the simplification and the speeding up of police and judicial cooperation—articles 30 and 31 of the Treaty of the EU—but without at the same time setting an acceptable standard for fundamental rights throughout a united Europe.2

The long-awaited Council Decision of 6 April 2009 establishing the European Police Office (Europol) replaces the Europol Convention and transforms Europol from an intergovernmental organization into an EU agency. This article contains a critical exploration of the new provisions of the Europol Council Decision. The authors take stock of the novelties through a comparative analysis of the Europol Convention, its Protocols, the Commission Proposal and revised versions of the Europol Council Decision. Europol is thematically dissected into clusters: legal basis, competence, tasks, governance and control. The assessment is based on the following questions: What are the major changes? Do they contribute to a better functioning of Europol? What are the missed opportunities? In what direction is Europol heading? The importance of the Europol Council Decision is that it provides Europol with a new and more flexible legal basis. The shift in competence from "organized crime" to "serious crime" is another significant change. The Europol Council Decision continues to stress Europol's core-business, which remain information-related tasks. A "European FBI" seems far off, even with the transformation of Europol into a full-fledged EU agency. The Europol Council Decision falls somewhat short of expectations when it comes to Europol's governance and control. Overall, the main conclusion of this article is that the Europol Council Decision is not as new as it would seem, yet new enough to herald a new era for Europol.