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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 468-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

european scrutiny COMMITTEE

 

 

justice, freedom and security

 

 

Monday 4 April 2005

MR FRANCO FRATTINI and MR STEFANO BERTOZZI

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 31

 

 

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Monday 4 April 2005

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Present

Mr Jimmy Hood, in the Chair

Mr Michael Connarty

Mr Wayne David

Mr David Heathcoat-Amory

Sandra Osborne

Angus Robertson

John Robertson

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Witnesses: Mr Franco Frattini, Vice President for Justice, Freedom and Security and Mr Stefano Bertozzi, European Commission, examined.

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 McCready 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, I published 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 present 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 by 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.

Q20 John Robertson: Mr Vice President, negotiations on the Racism and Xenophobia Framework Decision have been resumed and, among other things, it seeks to establish an EU-wide crime of "public denial or gross trivialisation" of war crimes. Is this not a good example of a matter which should be left to the different traditions within the member nations?

Mr Frattini: On racism and xenophobia I think there is an important need to respond to this terrible offence on our basis in terms of fundamental rights, that is racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia as well. The original proposal made by the Commission a few years ago has been profoundly amended and we are very close to reaching a possible compromise. It is a compromise fully respecting the principle of subsidiarity. We had a very fruitful discussion at the last Interior Ministers' Council that took place for the first time in January, for the second time in February, and finally the Presidency and the Commission came to the conclusion that it is possible to come up with an agreed solution, an agreed solution setting up common principles. The first principle is that there is no space in Europe for racism and xenophobia, but, in full respect of subsidiarity, leaving it to the Member States to translate this principle according to different traditions, different solutions and different histories. We are very close. We left the new Member States a period of time to examine the draft proposal and I am confident that there will be unanimity in accepting this Framework Decision respecting subsidiarity.

Q21 John Robertson: Can I get clarification of that. Is what you are saying that the Member States then will have jurisdiction over the interpretation of what is in it?

Mr Frattini: Of course.

Q22 John Robertson: I have got to ask, what is the point? If the Member States have the final say, or even at the initial stage have their say, what is the point of writing this out?

Mr Frattini: The point is that we include some actions that are forbidden, that are banned in every Member State, but each Member State translates penal rules, including sanctions, according to national legislation and national tradition. It is only the principle that is a common European principle. In some Member States there are no rules at all regarding punishment for racist activities and that is unacceptable in my view. In other Member States, including my country, there are. We do not need any change if this Framework Decision is approved because in Italy there is already a full legislation, penal legislation, regarding racism and xenophobia but, on the contrary, in other Member States there is not and that is why it is extremely useful.

Q23 John Robertson: With the greatest respect, if it is the case that some countries do not have, shall we say, the legislation that we have in Britain or in Italy, you are not going to impose what the words are within the document and if you are not going to do that then what is the point? These countries will still have their own jurisdiction on racism and xenophobia, or the lack of any.

Mr Frattini: When there is a lack of legislation, the Member State should provide new legislation.

Q24 John Robertson: But you are not going to force European will upon them.

Mr Frattini: They should provide new legislation.

Q25 John Robertson: But you are not going to make them do that.

Mr Frattini: The Commission will monitor the situation by providing a report about the implementation of the Framework Decision, as usual.

Q26 Angus Robertson: Commissioner, I do not think anybody has any objections to racism or xenophobia being combated in the most effective way possible, and I think in every single Member State there will be in one way or another the ability of the legal system to combat racism or xenophobia. The issue that was raised by my colleague opposite was about the establishment of an EU-wide crime of "public denial or gross trivialisation". As a jurist, you will know that this is the same as in the German or Austrian legal systems, Wiederbetätigung, national socialist agitation, saying that six million Jews did not die during the Second World War. That is an offence, it is a very serious offence, and we can understand why they take that so seriously in their countries, but it is not a crime here to say that. It is contemptible, it is wrong and it is to be condemned, but it is not a crime. How does one reconcile saying that we are going to respect the subsidiarity of different countries' legal traditions by bringing in a European-wide crime? That is a contradiction, with the greatest of respect. Either you tell countries, "You are to have a new crime that does not exist here now" or not. You cannot respect subsidiarity and at the same time say, "You will do this".

Mr Frattini: I understand your preoccupation. This proposal is extremely useful for some Member States that do not yet have any domestic legislation about racism or xenophobia.

Q27 Angus Robertson: Forgive me, I am not asking about racism or xenophobia, I am asking about "public denial or gross trivialisation". That is not racism, that is not xenophobia, that is about the denial of national social crimes, for example.

Mr Frattini: We are not considering this particular situation in the Framework Decision. We are not considering including this particular situation, we are guaranteeing a certain degree of flexibility.

Q28 Mr Connarty: So the Commission has dropped that proposal?

Mr Frattini: I do not have the final draft in front of my eyes.

Mr Connarty: I have seen it.

Q29 Mr Heathcoat-Amory: I think we must get to the bottom of this.

Mr Frattini: I will check this point.

Q30 Mr Connarty: It is a very positive announcement.

Mr Frattini: Yes, I will check this point.

Q31 Chairman: We look forward to getting that clarified, Mr Vice President. Can I thank you very much for being here with us for the last hour or so. I can tell you we have about the same amount of questions we have asked you so far to ask you again. As they say in the cabaret, it is always good to leave the audience wanting more. In that sense, it has been very useful. I hope you found it informative and useful for yourself because certainly we have. Thank you very much for affording us this opportunity.

Mr Frattini: Thank you very much.