1. Minister, I think that the initiative
for this meeting came from you originally, and that makes it doubly
pleasant to have you here. The last time that you appeared in
front of a sub-committee of the Select Committee was when we were
doing the Intergovernmental Conference report a couple of years
ago, and I remember the help that you gave us on that occasion.
This is a meeting of Sub-Committee F augmented by members of Sub-Committee
E and I find myself in the chair because there are interesting
things that I want to ask you about Third Pillar scrutiny. However,
perhaps you would like to start, Minister, by making some sort
of opening statement?
(Ms Quin) My Lord Chairman, I very much welcome
the chance to appear before you, and I too remember the earlier
occasion on which I gave evidence to the Committee. Obviously
one of the real reasons behind this occasion is the forthcoming
United Kingdom Presidency and the work that that will involve
in justice and home affairs issues, and in justice and home affairs
as with the United Kingdom Presidency generally the Government
sees this as an excellent opportunity to participate fully in
the workings of the European Union, to work with our colleagues
in progressing a variety of matters, some of which I know the
Committees here take a great interest in, to be an efficient enabling
Presidency and also, of course, to speak to a certain extent to
the domestic audience here in the United Kingdom about the usefulness
of co-operation in justice and home affairs issues on a great
many issues that we believe are of practical benefit to the people
that we represent and, indeed, to the people of other European
Union countries as well. The obvious areas are ones with which
you are very much familiar: the fight against organised crime
and the various facets that that has; the need and desirability
to promote the issue of enlargement in the European Union and
the justice and home affairs aspects of that - certainly we see
the work on the pre-accession pact on organised crime as an important
part of the arrangements that are being made with the applicant
countries and, indeed, with the associate countries over the coming
months; the desirability to co-operate on various aspects of immigration
and asylum policy; the need to get Europol up and running where
the United Kingdom has certainly been extremely active up to now,
and we hope that that will become a reality with all the countries
concerned ratifying the Europol Convention during our Presidency;
police and judicial co-operation generally and, indeed, such areas
as race relations which are an important part of our remit and
where we believe that the United Kingdom certainly has got a contribution
to make. There will be a series of events and seminars and conferences
organised during the United Kingdom Presidency addressing these
issues. We will also be having an informal Council meeting in
Birmingham and there will be various events around that. Some
of the events that we are organising will, of course, be open
to the applicant countries, the countries from central and eastern
Europe. We need to manage a great deal of business and to progress
a great deal of business which is already in the pipeline. Some
of that will be business involving Schengen, although the United
Kingdom, as you know, has a special arrangement as a result of
the Amsterdam Treaty. We will nevertheless need to be a Presidency
which is responding to the wishes of the European Union as a whole
in incorporating the Schengen acquis into the Treaty. We will
also be presiding over G8 at that time and there will be a range
of international commitments that the United Kingdom Government
has where we will want to have a good co-ordination between what
we are doing in the United Kingdom Presidency and our work within
the G8, the OECD and other international bodies. I think that
is what I would say by way of introduction. There are a large
number of complicated issues within the areas that I have mentioned,
but we very much see the justice and home affairs aspect of the
United Kingdom Presidency as reinforcing the need for co-operation
in a good many areas which we believe are of concern to the citizen,
and that is really the fundamental objective of the work that
we will be doing.
2. Thank you, Minister. I think it is probably true to
say that these Sub-Committees and the Select Committee have been
gearing up on the subject of Third Pillar matters for some time
now. Speaking in terms of the British Presidency, of course, we
will have COSAC, that is, the Conference of European Affairs Committees,
meeting in London in May, and I think that my opposite number
in another place, Jimmy Hood, and I have managed to get Third
Pillar scrutiny on to the agenda for that COSAC meeting because
it seems to us that there is a special responsibility on national
parliaments to scrutinise Third Pillar matters in a way that the
European Parliament cannot do by the very nature of the beast.
Let us then move on to the detail. I think that after Amsterdam
we were all somewhat baffled by what the position was in relation
to Schengen, where the opt-ins were and where the opt-outs were
and where neither of them were. Do you think that you are in a
position to clarify our situation in relation to Schengen now
and how much progress has been made to date in identifying the
Schengen acquis?
(Ms Quin) My Lord Chairman, it is hard to give
you a great deal of comfort on this score, I am afraid, simply
because we have not even now received the whole of the Schengen
acquis although we have been told that the Schengen Presidency
has just finished its analysis of the acquis to determine what
are the relevant documents. It has been quite a perplexing process
in some ways in that different countries seem not to have exactly
the same notion of what is in the Schengen acquis, so we await
the final version with some interest and, I may say, some trepidation
given accounts of the quantity of documents that are reported
to exist on this matter. There have been meetings so far to assess
the allocation of the acquis between different Pillars and different
parts of the new Treaty, but again not a great deal of progress
has been made on this up to now and these really have only been
discussed, I think I am right in saying, in the working group.
Perhaps at this point, my Lord Chairman, I could mention that
I am accompanied here today by Peter Edwards, who is the head
of our European Union and International Unit in the Home Office,
and who will, I am sure, supplement any gaps in my knowledge in
answering or attempting to answer some of your questions.
(Mr Edwards) My Lord Chairman, I shall do my best.
3. You are one of our usual welcome witnesses, Mr Edwards.
(Mr Edwards) Thank you, my Lord Chairman.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
4. May I ask a supplementary question on Schengen. When
it is agreed what is in the acquis and what is to go into the
First Pillar and into the Third Pillar we will, as I understand
the Amsterdam Treaty, have the choice of opting-in or opting-out
subject to agreement with others of those aspects that go into
the Third Pillar. Would it be correct to assume that all those
that go into the First Pillar the United Kingdom will be unavoidably
involved with or do we have some opt-in/opt-out even under those
matters?
(Ms Quin) My Lord Chairman, as I understand it,
we have an opt in arrangement on all the matters in the Schengen
acquis. Perhaps I may ask Peter Edwards to come in here.
(Mr Edwards) My Lord Chairman, I will do my best
to explain the position as I understand it. I think the position
is that when a decision has been made on which part of the Treaty
the different parts of the acquis should be entered into there
is then a further negotiation which has to take place to consider
whether the United Kingdom and Ireland may participate in certain
elements of the acquis which have been incorporated. Ministers
have not yet taken decisions on which those parts should be, but
it would be inconsistent with our general stance on internal frontiers
for us to want to participate in much of the Schengen co-operation
that would be put into the First Pillar. By contrast, in regard
to the Third Pillar, where we have taken the view that we want
to co-operate very fully in police and judicial co-operation,
there is a presumption that we will want to look very carefully
at the scope for co-operating in Schengen arrangements incorporated
into the Third Pillar. So there are those two broad categories,
but there is also a sort of intermediary category where I think
the Government will have to think very carefully which way it
wants to move. Asylum might be put into that category, and although
asylum falls within the First Pillar, the new free movement chapter,
it seems at least possible that the Government will decide that
there is a balance of advantage for the United Kingdom in continuing
to co-operate in the area of asylum policy, particularly with
a view to avoiding the kinds of asylum shopping problems that
have been encountered within Europe up to now.
Chairman
5. How far and in what way do you anticipate involving
Parliament in the discussions on these things as the pattern emerges
or are you going to come to Parliament and say, this is what we
have decided, take it or leave it?
(Ms Quin) My Lord Chairman, we are keen certainly
to consult with Parliament on these issues. The Schengen acquis,
or as much information as we have, is being deposited in the House
of Commons Library and, indeed, already we are responding to quite
a few Parliamentary Questions on this issue, so I have a feeling
that even if we did not want to we would still be very much involved
in contact with Parliament about this. It certainly makes sense
for Parliament to be in a position to look at aspects of the Schengen
acquis and for us to have a consultative arrangement by which
we can ascertain views on how these matters ought to be taken
forward. It seems to me - and this is partly following up the
first question - that whether it is in Pillar One or Pillar Three
there is a difference between the Social Chapter opt out arrangement
that used to operate and the opt in possibilities for us under
Schengen because we will be part of the discussion of these issues
and therefore we will be able to be there at the table even if
at the end there are areas, as Peter Edwards pointed out, which
we will be very unlikely to opt into.
6. I think that what we would ask as a Select Committee
is that the Home Office keeps us informed as much as possible
and as early as possible. We recognise that this is a moving target
that you are dealing with, but on the other hand I think that
the sooner that we can get information and can come to a view
ourselves to advise both the House and the Government on what
our view is, the better for all concerned. I know that it is more
difficult with Third Pillar matters than it is with First Pillar
matters, but I think that it is something that we have been developing
over the last two or three years now, I think moderately successfully,
and I hope that we can continue with that.
(Ms Quin) Certainly that is our intention, and
I am glad that despite various hiccups - because there are always
hiccups in that particular system - we have, I believe, improved
the relationship between the Home Office and Parliament in terms
of consulting and keeping the flow of information going on these
important matters, and it is certainly our intention to continue
in that. I would also like to thank the Committee for some of
the flexibility that you have been prepared to show in instances
where the target seems to have moved a bit more quickly than we
imagined it was going to. As I know the Home Secretary emphasised
when he gave evidence, it is sometimes difficult to predict; something
that seems to be moving very slowly will suddenly gather momentum
and it leaves difficulties in the consultative process, but we
are very committed to making that process work as effectively
as we can, and we do think that the new arrangements agreed at
Amsterdam will help greatly in that respect.
7. I have to say, Minister, with all due respect, and
not directed at the Home Office, that that has not shown generally
in recent weeks and we are at the moment in that awful period
at the end of a Presidency where documents come through - this
week I think that half of the documents that we have had required
to be cleared for scrutiny before Council next week and frankly
that is so wide of what was agreed, even in Maastricht, never
mind Amsterdam, that it is becoming unacceptable.
(Ms Quin) Well, I think that you are right to
draw attention to the cycle of events. Certainly we have noticed,
particularly towards the end of the current Presidency, that we
also have come under great pressure, and I personally have come
under great pressure, to clear things very, very quickly even
though there are many other matters within my portfolio that I
need to give attention to. I do understand the Committee's frustration
and certainly we will do our very best to ensure that the problems
do not recur. However, the situation certainly is not a particularly
easy one and there are many frustrations. I would like to say,
however, a word of support for my own officials in the Home Office
because I know that their workload has increased very greatly
and staffing has not increased at the same rate, anything but,
so they have been under particular pressure both with this last
minute rush that takes place under Presidencies and also with
the extra burden of preparing for our own Presidency.
Chairman] We do understand that. We will always
be as helpful and as flexible as we can, but there does come a
time when you begin to wonder what is the point of parliamentary
scrutiny when one only has a matter of hours sometimes to produce
some sort of answer, and again I absolve the Home Office from
this. All that I can say, I think, is that with the British Presidency
coming up we hope that it will not be the same mad rush at the
end of the British Presidency as there has been at the end of
all the others.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
8. I just want to ask about Schengen. You mentioned that
the British and Irish Governments take a similar line at the present
moment. Do you anticipate any particular difficulties if, as this
process of looking at bits of the acquis in detail goes on, there
should be any substantial divergence between the responses that
the British and Irish Governments maintain?
(Ms Quin) No, I think we recognise that obviously
the Irish Government have their own particular point of view.
They like us are very attached to the Common Travel Area, but
they certainly will have the flexibility to opt into the measures
that they wish to adopt, and while we have worked in a very co-operative
way together, none the less you are talking about two sovereign
governments and they have the right - and I do not believe that
it would cause any difficulty - to choose the measures that they
feel comfortable with and that they would like to adopt.
9. Let me ask about a Presidency management matter. Lord
Kingsland and I were in Brussels on sub-committee business in
July and several people remarked to us just how very heavy the
Third Pillar committee structure was, steering committees, working
groups, a mass of paper going through. Do you see any way in which
one might lighten the hierarchy of working groups, the involvement
of a very large number of officials and the circulation of a huge
amount of paper?
(Ms Quin) I will give a general reply and then
perhaps ask Mr Edwards to comment further. I think that there
has been some rationalisation of the work of the Steering Groups.
The structure is fairly cumbersome although the amount of work
and the amount of preparatory work that needs to be done in a
sense makes that to a certain degree unavoidable. Certainly we
are not in the business of creating structures for the sake of
creating structures, and if further changes can be considered
or may be proposed, then obviously that is something that we would
look at. Perhaps Mr Edwards would like to comment.
(Mr Edwards) Yes, thank you. Certainly the weight
of paper in the First Pillar is pretty overwhelming and I can
see very little prospect of that easing under our Presidency.
I am afraid that we are talking about a paper mill essentially
in Europe. I believe that the Third Pillar accounts for something
like 30 per cent or more of all the papers that go through the
European Union machinery. However, so far as the bureaucracy is
concerned I do think that there will be some attempts made at
streamlining from now on. We inherited a situation in which there
were five levels of consideration of matters from the working
group level right the way up to the Justice and Home Affairs Council
with the Steering Groups playing a role, K.4 itself playing a
role, and COREPER preparing the Council as it does every other
Council. I think that it has been recognised for several Presidencies
now that this is too heavy a structure and that the way to achieve
some lightening of the structure is by focusing on the role of
the Steering Group. For the last couple of Presidencies the Presidency
has organised only one meeting of each of the three Steering Groups
and during our Presidency we want to take that one stage further
by not having any meetings at all of steering groups. We think
that their role has really been largely overtaken now, particularly
by some of the new committees that have come into being recently,
and I am thinking here of the multidisciplinary group which looks
after action on organised crime and whose remit really runs across
more than one of the steering group areas. Also the new Schengen
working groups obviously have to look at the whole of the Treaty
and not just the Third Pillar. There is also now a horizontal
drugs group which looks at drugs action across all three Pillars
of the Treaty. I think that the existence of these usually fairly
senior level groups has made it unnecessary to have steering groups,
and has also simplified the bureaucracy in other ways. It is not
a case of new groups introducing new complexity, but more of new
groups simplifying the bureaucracy.
Lord Inglewood
10. If I may, my Lord Chairman, I should like to ask
the Minister this. We have talked about the opt-in or opt-out,
whichever way you want to define it, for the Schengen acquis.
Has the Government - and you may say that the question is premature
- started to develop an attitude which will indicate where we
might opt-in and where we might opt-out? What kind of test do
you anticipate applying to the acquis to see whether or not we
in this country might wish to opt in or opt out?
(Ms Quin) Well, you kindly suggested an answer
in that it is somewhat premature, but basically we intend to adopt
a pragmatic attitude towards this and see what seems to be a sensible
measure on which to join with other member countries, obviously
whether the measure is seen to be in our interests or not, and
that we will simply approach the issues on a case by case basis.
There are obviously areas where already in Third Pillar and justice
and home affairs areas we have been very active in co-operating,
judicial and police co-operation and so on, and in some cases
of customs co-operation. There are other areas, particularly the
issues that Mr Edwards referred to, of border controls where we
have not, so there are obviously some indicators there of how
we are likely to approach this, but it is really hard to give
any more precise information until we have had a chance to look
at what is on offer. However, I must say, having attended now
a couple of Justice and Home Affairs formal Councils and an informal
Council there is good co-operation across a range of policy areas,
so we are certainly ready to help do our bit to make that co-operation
a success in areas in which we feel we have a contribution to
make and which are in our interests.
Lord Bridges
11. If I may ask you a question, Minister, about what
you said about the Schengen acquis, as I understood you, you said
that you were still awaiting information as to exactly what this
amounted to and I formed the impression that you are waiting the
arrival of some bulky dossier from somewhere. Who exactly is compiling
this for you? Is it done by the Commission, is it done by some
of the groups which Mr Edwards has described to us? Is it the
Commission or the Council? I am very unclear where this dossier
load is expected to arrive from.
(Ms Quin) Mr Edwards will correct me if I am wrong,
but I assume that this gets forwarded to us by the Schengen Presidency
- is that right? - or by officials working to the Schengen Presidency.
(Mr Edwards) The Schengen Presidency, Austria
at the moment, Belgium in the new year, is in charge of an exercise
which is looking at the Schengen acquis as a whole and trying
to come up with a definitive version of it for the purposes of
incorporation into the European Union, but that is not a straightforward
exercise, as I understand it, because there is a vast bulk of
instruments, decisions, documents, which have been accumulated
over the few years that Schengen has been in being. Some of them
are superseded by parts of the European Union Treaty, some are
simply spent because they relate to circumstances that no longer
obtain. It is really a matter of sifting through the material
and deciding what is formally the acquis for purposes of treaty
incorporation, and the Schengen Presidency, Austria, have been
taking the lead on that supported by the Schengen Secretariat,
which is at present separate from the Council Secretariat but
which in due course will itself be swallowed up by the Council
Secretariat.
12. I see, thank you.
(Ms Quin) It is a complicated area because also
there is work that needs to be done in looking at some of the
institutional questions involved in bringing Norway and Iceland
into the incorporated arrangements because of the border free
area that they operate with the other Nordic countries, so that
is a further interesting aspect of the Schengen incorporation
work.
Chairman
13. And, of course, it is true, is it not, that in terms
of enlargement similar problems will occur when we get into eastern
Europe?
(Ms Quin) Indeed.
14. Particularly in relation to Hungary?
(Ms Quin) In a way bringing into effect Amsterdam
will at least help to clarify matters - incorporation will have
taken place by then - and the fact that that body of rules has
been incorporated will then be something that will be clearly
identifiable to the applicant countries, so in some ways it may
be simpler than the situation that we are in at the moment.
15. May we move on to the question of Europol which,
as you know, is something that has engaged this Committee in the
past, or Sub-Committee E, to be precise. We had certain disagreements
with the Home Office on the role of the European Court of Justice
on Europol matters. Can you tell us how many States have now ratified
the Convention?
(Ms Quin) Eight Member States have reported that
they have gone through the procedures of ratification. Obviously,
as is always pointed out, we were the first in the United Kingdom,
but Portugal, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Germany and Ireland have
ratified although only the United Kingdom and Spain have completed
the formal notification requirement by depositing the instrument
of ratification with the Council Secretariat. We still remain
hopeful that all Member States will have completed the procedures
in time for the Convention to enter into force during the United
Kingdom Presidency. We cannot guarantee that, but we are very
hopeful that that will be the case.
16. We understand that the Germans are expressing concern
about the Protocol on Immunities for Europol staff, and I also
get the feeling that the Germans are a bit uncertain as to how
they see the future of Europol. There seem to be countervailing
pressures here. We have always been very clear in this country
that Europol is basically an information exchange. The word operational
creeps in these days and there are different interpretations of
what operational means. I think that as far as we are concerned
operational means that the database is up and running. I think
that as far as one or two other people are concerned it may mean
that they want to see Europol as a European wide police force.
(Ms Quin) On your last point, my Lord Chairman,
in my early months in the Home Office I commented that I kept
seeing this expression "getting Europol up and running"
and, of course, that was precisely because of the ambiguity if
you use the word operational given that the German view was very
much that they wanted to develop it into an operational police
force whereas the general view, and this is the view of the United
Kingdom, was that it was an information and intelligence gathering
body. I think that Member States are very clear now what Europol's
role is, but that does not mean to say that there is not some
hope, particularly in Germany, that it might turn out to be something
different despite the fact that the agreement very clearly gives
it the identity which you yourself, my Lord Chairman, have described.
Germany has experienced some difficulties over the Protocol on
Immunities and Privileges and basically that seems to be because
they have looked at these immunities for Europol staff and said
that they are more wide-ranging and far-reaching than those which
are enjoyed by German police officers. But, of course, we would
say, along with other countries, well, this is not a genuine comparison
because Europol is not composed of police officers in that sense.
However, despite this difficulty it has been signalled to us by
Germany that they do expect to ratify the Protocol in the first
three months of next year.
Lord Bridges
17. Is part of the difficulty that Europol is going to
be sited on German territory?
(Mr Edwards) If I may dare to correct you, Europol
is situated in the Hague, not in Germany.
18. Oh, I did not know that.
(Mr Edwards) The headquarters is in the Hague
though no doubt Europol staff will go on mission to Germany for
a variety of purposes. May I just add one further point, my Lord
Chairman, which is to make the point that Europol is not just
about the exchange of information; it is also about the analysis
of information and the preparation of analytical files on criminals,
criminal organisations and so on, so that when it does become
operational - if I can use that word - it will mark a real step
forward in police co-operation at the European level.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
19. If I may press you on the immunities question, because
it does seem to me to be a very delicate one, the question of
immunities of Europol staff does, of course, partly depend on
how far you see Europol becoming the European FBI of which Chancellor
Kohl has spoken and there are civil liberties delicacies, to put
it gently, in having international liaison officers who will be
drawn from national police forces who have extensive immunities
to carry out even analytical work.
(Ms Quin) I think that that is a fair point. Certainly
if Europol was not the intelligence gathering and analysis organisation
that has been described and was operating as a police force, I
think that the civil liberties aspect of the immunities argument
would be very real, but we do not believe that in the present
and foreseeable state of Europol that is a problem and certainly
we do not see it developing into a European FBI. It seems to me
that that argument has already been gone through and been rejected
in the agreement that has been reached. I must say in answer to
the previous question that the question was put with such authority
that I had a real moment of panic in thinking, well, it is in
the Hague, but is it about to move to Germany. However, I am reassured
to hear that it is not!
