Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR FRANCO
FRATTINI AND
MR STEFANO
BERTOZZI
4 APRIL 2005
Q1 Chairman: Mr Vice President, welcome
to this meeting of the European Scrutiny Committee. First of all,
can I say though we are looking forward to you being here today,
how sad it is that we meet at this terrible time with the death
of Pope John Paul II. I apologise that some of our Members are
attending a mass now in Westminster who were looking forward to
being here. I am sure you will understand the difficult and sad
situation. Welcome to the European Scrutiny Committee. Mr Vice
President, did you want to make an introductory statement?
Mr Frattini: Very briefly, Chairman.
Thank you very much, Chairman, and ladies and gentlemen. I will
be very brief. The Commission is fully committed to implementing
the Hague strategy. In the field of security, justice and freedom
we need to develop the strategy already decided by the Council.
I am doing that and I am ready to present a proposal in May, after
discussions were had in the Council in January and then in April.
There are four pillars in my idea, four pillars in the Action
Plan. The first pillar is terrorism and security, security in
general and the prevention and fight against terrorists and organised
crime in particular. Here I see the need on one hand to strengthen
security of European citizens and I think about reinforcing strategies
to cut the financial resources of terrorists, to protect critical
infrastructures, to prevent radicalisation and eradicate violence
through profound dialogue with Muslim moderate countries on the
one hand, a strategy to prevent and fight against terrorism. On
the other hand, in my view there is no security without full protection
of fundamental rights. There is no contradiction in my view. I
saw the document issued by the House of Lords about the Hague
strategy where the House underlined the importance of not forgetting
the protection and promotion of fundamental rights while guaranteeing
security of European citizens. I will proceed in parallel on two
tracks. The first track is to strengthen security, strengthen
law enforcement authorities' powers, improve exchange of information,
strengthen protection of infrastructures and so on; in the parallel
track there will be more protection for the fundamental rights
of people. I give an example: privacy rights, data protection
rights. As you probably know, Commissioner McCreevy has transferred
to me the entire responsibility for data protection and data retention
so I am going to present in parallel by the end of this year the
first comprehensive proposal on data protection in the third pillar
because we should move in parallel, as I said. That is the first
pillar, security prevention and the fight against terrorism but
at the same time protection of fundamental rights. I cannot forget,
of course, organised crime. I will focus in particular on victims'
protection and particularly children and women. I am going to
present a proposal in the coming months. The second pillar is
European migration policy. This migration policy will aim to elaborate
a comprehensive strategy helping Member States to face this very
important phenomenon in close co-operation with third countries
of origin and transit which means a European strategy. That means
listening to relevant actors, including enterprise associations,
trade unions, civil society. As you know, the Commission adopted
the Green Paper on Economic Migration because before putting a
proposal on the table, I do prefer listening to and collecting
suggestions and proposals and then, finally, what I am going to
do by the end of this year, after having listened to different
proposals, is to elaborate a Commission proposal. Economic migration
includes, of course, the fight against illegal migration and,
once again, the fight against trafficking in human beings. That
will require the full co-operation of third countries. I am going
to elaborate a comprehensive strategy regarding particularly the
Mediterranean region and eastern dimension of Europe which are
the two most relevant areas. A European migration strategy will
include integration strategy. I cannot imagine a European strategy
on immigration without a clear indication about integration in
order to avoid this feeling of isolation, this feeling of marginalisation
of communities, and that is why I will propose a European Integration
Fund in order to guarantee social services, education and so on
to legal migrants. Finally, very briefly on fundamental rights,
as you know the Commission is committed to presenting a proposal
on the agency of fundamental rights as requested by the Council.
The proposal on the agency will be, once again, the result of
a public debate that is on the way. There was a public hearing
and now the Commission is elaborating a proposal which will be
an agency replacing the monitoring centre which is in Vienna on
racism and xenophobia. Racism and xenophobia and anti-Semitism
will remain at the heart of the new agency. The new agency will
be a European agency to control full respect, full compliance
with European legislation and, first of all, the European Charter
of Fundamental Rights. Finally, the last pillar will be the external
dimension of European security. Before the end of June I will
present a proposal to be discussed under the UK Presidency in
the second half of 2005 regarding the external dimension of security.
Security has international and trans-border implications, first
of all, of course, terrorism. In this strategy there will be included,
of course, the principle of dialogue between religions and civilisations
and there will be the principle of full co-operation included
with third countries on the one hand and, of course, there will
be reaffirmed the extremely important co-operation with the United
States. Finally, this document will aim at demonstrating that
the EU can be, and must be in my view, the producer of security,
not only the consumer of security at the expense of the United
States. That will be the first elaboration of an international
European strategy on the external dimension. I will stop there,
Chairman.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Mr Vice
President, you answered my first question very well. You have
set the scene for more detail in the form of questions. Mr Connarty?
Q2 Mr Connarty: The Hague Programme envisages
a common asylum procedure. Why are the minimum standards in the
present Procedures Directive inadequate? Is the Commission aiming
for a uniform asylum policy and procedure?
Mr Frattini: My opinion is that
on common asylum procedure Europe can make the difference. Why,
because now at the current stage we see very different rules and
very different legislation in each Member State. That leads, and
will lead, to negative consequences like some Member States which
leave the doors open to false asylum seekers and other Member
States where the situation is totally different. What do we need?
In my view we need a clear concept, a clear definition of who
is a true asylum seeker. What is the appropriate treatment following,
of course, the principle of fundamental rights, the principle
of full protection? In my view, it is not a pre-condition to have
a European law on asylum, it is a pre-condition to have common
standards on treatment, common standards on admission, common
standards on the juridical qualification of asylum seekers, and
that is a field where Europe could help Member States. My intention
is to closely co-operate with the United Nations and, together
with the United Nations, I am elaborating a pilot regional programme
in order to help origin countries and transit countries aimed
at protecting asylum seekers, true asylum seekers of course, and
to make a clear distinction between, for example, economic migrants
and asylum seekers. Sometimes there is a great confusion between
these two concepts. We should elaborate a common principle on
procedures in order to avoid any possible confusion for the future.
In my view that is the best way to follow. Of course, we cannot
imagine following a top-down approach, we prefer a bottom-up approach
because I prefer to listen to relevant partners, actors, Member
States, and then elaborate a proposal. Also, in this matter I
do prefer to have answers to questions rather than to put the
proposal "Please take it or leave it", which is not,
in my view, the appropriate method.
Mr Connarty: Thank you.
Q3 Mr David: Hello, Commissioner. I wonder
if I could ask you about the idea of a European Corps of Border
Guards, which is something that is very contentious.
Mr Frattini: I know.
Q4 Mr David: I was wondering how you
saw this idea developing and whether or not you believe that it
is still very much up to individual Member States to have control
over their external borders.
Mr Frattini: On external borders
we should move step-by-step. We are launching this new agency
for external border control that will be operational on 1 May.
We should reach an agreement about the seat but, nevertheless,
the agency will be operational. Thinking about a European Border
Guard Corps is totally different. I know that a part of this raises
a number of complicated legal problems, legal questions, and political
questions as well. I would be very happy to be able to solve these
questions, these problems, but the reality is that we should focus
on training, on exchange of experience rather than accelerating
the establishment of such a Corps. That is my view by reason of
prudence. Of course, some Member States are strongly in favour,
as you know, but other Member States are strongly reluctant and
the Commission must take national positions into account. Once
again, I cannot imagine deciding from Brussels whether or not
such a Corps must be established without having listened to each
Member State. That is my approach. We will leave the door open
for further discussion on this point but, in my view, it is much
more important to speed up the operational activity of this agency.
This agency will be very useful in order to guarantee the principle
of burden sharing in facing illegal immigration and in managing
immigration in general. In my view, this principle of burden sharing
that is an aspect of the principle of solidarity among Member
States is much more important than accelerating the establishment
of this Corps.
Q5 Mr David: I wonder if I could ask
you to say a little bit more about what exactly burden sharing
is?
Mr Frattini: Burden sharing is,
first of all, a European commitment to help Member States to face.
When you talk about some very small country that is in the middle
of the Mediterranean, and that is probably a door facing enormous
flows of migrants, we should take into account that this Member
State needs our help and it is absolutely impossible to avoid
this point immediately. When we talk about a bigger Member State
that has the great problem of resettlement or a big problem of
return, of repatriation, towards origin countries, I think that
return and repatriation policies are policies where Europe should
take the burden. In my view, that is burden sharing. Each Member
State cannot live alone facing a problem that is a common problem
for all of us. That is why I am preparing to increase European
funding for this purpose of burden sharing in the immigration
strategy, to help Member States.
Q6 Mr David: Could I just ask a very
particular question. The way you define burden sharing is very
good, but supposing a Member State does not want to have their
burden shared, what is the position of the Commission then?
Mr Frattini: Of course, we should
use the political capacity of persuasion. I do not see any other
possibility, neither to impose nor to say "go alone".
That is absolutely impossible. The only way I know is to try to
persuade, to explain that it is in their own interests to share
the burden. If you think about the legalisation of illegal immigrants,
that is a question directly involving the solidarity principle
and because all action has an impact on other Member States we
should take into full consideration these aspects: "Please,
do you want to be helped?", "Yes, of course. Help me,
please". Something is needed in return.
Q7 Angus Robertson: If we could move
from the Border Corps to something else which we have looked at
closely in this Committee on a number of occasions, which is the
question of a European Public Prosecutor's Office. Does the Commission
still favour the creation of a European Public Prosecutor's Office
and, if so, why?
Mr Frattini: Starting from my
previous experience as Italian Foreign Minister when Italy took
responsibility for leading the European Presidency, I remember
very well when working on the Constitutional Draft Treaty I understood
that there was not consensus about a European Public Prosecutor
or, better, there was no unanimity on that. At that time we preferred
to leave the door open until the future when, and if, there will
be unanimous consensus on this principle. At the second time recently,
November 2004, when the Council agreed on the Hague strategy,
there were some Member States demanding to include a clear reference
in the Conclusions to a European Public Prosecutor. Other Member
States—if I am right, the majority—refused, and we
just made reference to further progress regarding Eurojust; a
clear reference that for some Member States it means giving them
the possibility to expand Eurojust to transform into a Public
Prosecutor and for other Member States it means right now avoiding
such a possibility. Once again, my approach to Europe is a pragmatically
enthusiastic approach, but pragmatically. That means that I prefer
to strengthen Eurojust rather than to embark European Member States
on a discussion that will lead to a split, because I am sure of
that.
Q8 Angus Robertson: If I could just follow
that up. You have outlined the fact that there is a minority in
favour of the European Public Prosecutor and the majority of states
are opposed to it, but what is the Commission's opinion? What
is your opinion as a Commissioner with responsibility for this
area? Are you in favour of the European Public Prosecutor's Office
and, if you are, why?
Mr Frattini: In justice and jurisdiction
matters, the Commission cannot impose a precooked solution on
the Member States. My duty is to listen to Member States and take
into account the majority and minority opinions and, finally,
trying to reach a good compromise like strengthening Eurojust,
but I cannot impose my own opinion, that would be a great mistake.
Q9 Mr Connarty: Commissioner Frattini,
what we see is that the first time this was proposed it was rejected
unanimously, the Commission came back with it and now they have
got a few people to take up the idea. It appears to us, and to
the British public that we represent, and to many other countries,
that the Commission will drive and drive and drive and do deals
behind closed doors until it gets its way with something that
was unanimously rejected. It should have been withdrawn. That
is democracy. Are you not a democratic organisation?
Mr Frattini: Yes. I fully respect
your opinion. In my view, the Commission could, and should, stimulate
Member States, should promote integration when it is possible,
and cannot impose. That is the limit I posed to myself.
Q10 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I am very surprised,
Mr Frattini, that you have no opinion about the European Prosecutor
because—
Mr Frattini: As Franco Frattini
I have a personal opinion but, in my view, it would be a mistake
to express my institutional conviction because it is a matter
where Member States should be taken into full consideration. That
is what we decided when drafting the Constitutional Treaty, to
leave the final decision on that to the Member States. I cannot
substitute for Brussels in taking this decision. Even if personally,
as Franco Frattini, I am in favour, as an Italian people, of course
maybe, why not, and as a former judge I am in favour of a Public
Prosecutor, but as a Commissioner I cannot express this opinion
institutionally. Trying to force Member States would provoke a
negative reaction. My final goal is to persuade a convergence
of Member States towards a more advanced solution and a more advanced
solution now is strengthening Eurojust.
Q11 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I was a member
of the Convention and the Commission representatives were very
enthusiastic for the Prosecutor and it was largely through their
work that it is now included in the constitution.
Mr Frattini: You are right, but
an agreement has been achieved on this draft and this draft leaves
open the door. That is my opinion. I can only stimulate, I cannot
impose, because the constitutional draft decided to leave open
the door and to set up the principle of unanimity and I should
respect this decision that has been taken.
Q12 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: Can I ask a more
general question then. At present—
Mr Frattini: I am sorry. When
I was President of the European Union I made every effort to include
Public Prosecutor but I was the Italian Foreign Minister taking
the Presidency of the European Union, which was totally different.
Q13 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: A more general
question. The European Union is regarded as being remote and its
outcomes and decisions are often inefficient and wasteful. This
has created disillusionment in Europe. This is another proposal
and, indeed, many of your proposals so far this afternoon have
been about more decision making at European level further away
from the citizen, so instead of reducing the gap between Europe
and the citizen we are going to increase it by taking decisions
away from Member State parliaments to a more remote decision making
process. How does this fit in with the democratisation of Europe
which we all want to see?
Mr Frattini: I will focus first
of all on the implementation. As you rightly said, we should avoid
increasing more and more and more legislation. We should concentrate
our efforts on the implementation and operational aspects. I will
give you an example. On the exchange of information among law
enforcement authorities, I stressed the principle that I will
focus on operational aspects, not legislation, but sometimes a
European guideline in terms of principles of common rules is needed.
I will give you an example. On organised crime, no-one can doubt
the importance for Europe of having a coherent approach towards
organised crime and the trafficking of human beings. If I am right,
more than five or six Member States now in their own national
legislations do not have the juridical concept of a participant,
a promoter of organised crime gangs. That requires an intervention
at European level otherwise I am trying to increase the level
of prevention and protection. If I think about the Framework Decision,
the Framework Decision does not leave to the Member States the
responsibility of translating it into their national laws. That
is what I am going to do regarding organised crime. Sometimes
a European initiative is needed. That is why I am going to avoid
where unnecessary putting on the table legislative proposals,
but where necessary I must do that.
Q14 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: You are making
the argument for more European action on the grounds of more efficiency
and security.
Mr Frattini: Yes.
Q15 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: But looked at
from the ordinary citizen's point of view at the lowest level,
decisions are being transferred from their parliament up to another
set of institutions that they feel no part of and yet the rhetoric
we get from Europe is we must return Europe to the citizens, closer
to the citizens. That is the phrase in the Laeken Declaration,
to return Europe, to make it more democratic. To transfer upwards
is in the wrong direction. How can you reconcile this?
Mr Frattini: If, as I hope, the
Constitutional Treaty will enter more powers into force, national
parliaments will have the power of controlling the subsidiarity
principle. I firmly believe in the subsidiarity principle. National
parliaments will play an important role in this legislative process,
also in order to indicate where there is a violation of the principle
of subsidiarity and, of course, the Commission will listen to
national parliaments in this regard. When we talk about concrete
solutions, I will give you another example. Many people fear the
concept of harmonisation or approximation but if you think about
civil law, in some fields at European level we need to manage
the consequences, for example, of trans-national divorces or successions
or wills or abduction of children in the family. Recently a new
regulation has entered into force in order to avoid any kind of
abduction of children by imposing the immediate enforcement of
judgments at national level because there were not common rules
avoiding this possibility. I would prefer to talk about approximation
and harmonisation where it is necessary and not always but sometimes
it is needed. That is in my view, of course.
Q16 Sandra Osborne: Commissioner, the
Hague Programme refers to the need for respect for the diversity
of the legal systems of the Member States. However, we have seen
a number of proposals, such as those on procedural rights in criminal
proceedings and on mediation in civil cases, where the intention
has been to legislate at EU level for purely internal cases. Is
it not more respectful of the diversity of national legal systems
to leave such internal cases to national law?
Mr Frattini: Well, we aim at making
justice accessible to citizens. That is our first objective. I
understand that full respect of national differences between legislation
is often required, but if you think about trans-border cases,
sometimes we could elaborate trans-border rules and offer to European
citizens on a voluntary basis an optional regime regarding the
possible solution of these cases. I am thinking about the orders
of payments or small claims, for example. In these areas there
is the possibility of establishing an additional optional regime
at European level to be chosen on a voluntary basis by the parties
concerned. Not a mandatory law, not imposed by Brussels, but offered
to the parties concerned in order to try to speed up the solution.
That is the difference. This morning I had a very fruitful conversation
with some ministers and they said, "Please, take into consideration
this important principle of purely internal cases and trans-border
cases. Please keep them separated." I will take this concern,
this preoccupation, into consideration. The final solution is
not already decided, it is under discussion. My personal opinion
that I have already given here is that we should offer to the
European citizen a common additional possibility and if they do
not want it they do not choose it and they continue to apply internal
domestic rules. But, on the contrary, if they want it, Europe
provides an additional rule that is common in order to avoid contrasts
of jurisdictions, contrasts of laws overcoming this principle
of trans-border or purely domestic cases. In my view that is the
best way, of course, but I will listen to Member States' different
opinions and together we will decide. It is on the way.
Q17 Mr Connarty: Continuing on the same
theme, clearly there are a number of reservations, not just in
party terms but across the broad spectrum of the representatives
in this House, about matters that are already agreed by the European
Union where the Commission intend to go. For example, we are concerned
that initiatives such as the European Arrest Warrant and the European
Evidence Warrant are really designed to create pressure for EU-wide
definitions of crimes and EU-wide definitions of uniform minimum
and maximum sanctions for criminal offences, even where the offence
is confined to one Member State. You have used the word in a way
again and again that makes me think to motivate you really mean
to argue for, that to motivate a country you want to argue for
something with a country. Is this the Commission's intention,
to try to press for uniform definitions of crimes and uniform
minimum and maximum sentences? Is the Hague Action Plan, which
you mentioned, likely to contain proposals for common definitions
of crimes and uniform requirements for sanctions for offences
or will you just be out there stimulating governments to take
these ideas forward?
Mr Frattini: Yes, that is the
best way to stimulate Member States and to give them common standard
proposals. I will give two examples. The first one is in 2002
the European Union agreed on a common definition of terrorism
and terrorist activities. There is a Framework Decision on Terrorism
indicating clearly and transparently what is a terrorist organisation
and what is terrorist activity. In my view that is a good basis
for Member States to translate these common principles into national
legislation. In the country that I know the best there is an appropriate
translation of such common principles on terrorism in domestic
legislation regarding financial resources of terrorists and a
definition of association for terrorist purposes and so on. Of
course, there is not a European law defining, there is a European
law indicating common principles. The same applies for a European
Arrest Warrant. Recently, I issued a report analysing the translation
into domestic legislation of this Framework Decision taken in
2003 and the result was that every Member State has translated
in a different manner. We are not here blaming and shaming Member
States but helping them. My opinion is that sometimes translation
is correct and sometimes translation does not correspond to the
spirit and to the substance of the solution agreed by unanimity.
That is the method I am going to follow. The third example I mentioned
earlier of organised crime. We cannot live without a European
definition of what is a criminal organisation and trafficking
in human beings and then it is up to Member States to translate
it into their own national legislation. The same is true for the
sanctions. Maximum and minimum is a range leaving Member States
free to harmonise, not a clear imposition of particular sanctions.
The method I prefer is to indicate minimum and maximum, a range
leaving Member States free to harmonise, to apply, to better translate.
Q18 Mr Connarty: It is very easy to make
a straw man to knock down, so if you pick something like terrorism
and international trafficking and financing of terrorism, that
is easy, but the concerns that people have are that on matters
that are purely domestic the European Arrest Warrant will be used
to intervene in what should be left to the definition of the individual
Member State and, particularly with the Arrest Warrant, that people
will be arrested by people from other countries because they offend
against the law in another country but it is not a breach of law
in the country in which they live. In other words, you do not
have the protection that your own country defines what a criminal
act is.
Mr Frattini: You are right. First
of all, the European Arrest Warrant focuses mainly on terrorism
and organised crime. The first result in 2004 was more than 2,500
arrests were executed in terrorism and organised crime fields.
Q19 Mr Connarty: That is easy.
Mr Frattini: Firstly, it demonstrates
that we cannot expand to the whole penal code, of course. Secondly,
we intend to propose a Framework Decision on procedural rights
of people as a balance to investigation and prosecutors' needs.
In my view that is an appropriate balance: on the one hand a European
Arrest Warrant and, on the other hand, European guarantees for
procedural rights.
Mr Connarty: We look forward to those
but I am still concerned.
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