FOREWORD—What this
Report is about
The Prüm Treaty is an initiative by seven Member
States which, having decided on their own common action for improving
cooperation in combating terrorism and serious cross-border crime,
are now attempting to incorporate it into EU law.
A Decision based on the Prüm Treaty can only
be adopted unanimously. The Government are therefore in a strong
negotiating position. Although initially slow in reacting to the
proposal, they have obtained agreement on the deletion of a provision
on "hot pursuit". We have recommended that they should
also seek agreement on the estimated cost of incorporating the
provisions, on monitoring the operation of the Decision, and on
the fate of a related Commission proposal.
The Prüm Treaty is mainly concerned with the
exchange of data. Inevitably this raises data protection issues.
As so often, these tend to be overlooked. We believe that Member
States now have an opportunity to link negotiations on the fight
against crime with agreement on a Data Protection Framework Decision
guaranteeing an appropriate level of protection for the personal
data which are exchanged. We have made suggestions as to how this
might be done.
In this report we have looked at the Prüm initiative;
at how it relates to other proposals in the same field which are
genuine EU initiatives; and at the desirability of a small number
of States attempting to bypass the established procedures.
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