Examination of Witnesses (Questions 292
- 299)
WEDNESDAY 25 JUNE 2008
Mr Robert Crepinko and Mr Alfredo Nunzi
Q292 Chairman: Mr
Crepinko, thank you so much for coming here. As you may know,
this is a Sub-Committee of the principal European Union Committee
of the House of Lords in the British Parliament. We cover most
issues which are the responsibility of what we call the Home Office
in London and we are conducting this inquiry on Europol which
we began a few weeks ago. It is our intention to complete our
inquiries by the end of July and then put a report together in
the autumn after the parliamentary recess is over and to publish
that report at the end of the year. We shall, of course, send
you a copy of it when we produce it, although you will no longer
be in the Chair of the Management Board. You realise you are on
the record. I wonder if you would be kind enough to begin by just
telling us something about your own background because I think
it would help us in knowing what your connections have been over
previous years with the issues which are concerning us.
Mr Crepinko: My Lord Chairman, thank
you for the invitation. It is a great honour to be here. Before
I begin I would like to ask you if it is okay with you for the
Secretary of the Management Board, Mr Alfredo Nunzi, to accompany
me. The reason I decided to invite him is that he might be a help
if we come to very technical questions, if you will allow that.
I rely sometimes upon his help.
Q293 Chairman:
His contributions will be most welcome to the Committee, no problem
at all.
Mr Crepinko: I hope that my English will
be good enough because when I was preparing for this hearing Mr
Nunzi asked me if I needed an interpreter and I said I would not
need one. I hope that you will not need one to understand me.
Q294 Chairman:
You are doing very well.
Mr Crepinko: Thank you. For the Slovenian
Presidency I am the Chairman of the Management Board and when
I take my Chairman hat off I am the Deputy Director of Criminal
Police in the Republic of Slovenia, so my in my day-to-day work
I am responsible for the operative work of criminal police in
the Republic of Slovenia. That means all domestic criminal cases
and also international co-operation. I have not been doing this
job very long. I started in November last year. Before that I
was head of the Special Operations Division, meaning for covert
operations, surveillance and stuff like that for the whole of
Slovenia.
Q295 Chairman:
Is that what we call Special Branch in the UK?
Mr Crepinko: Yes, but within the criminal
police. Before that I used to work in the drug field. I was a
criminal inspector at the national level responsible for drug
cases, mainly international drug cases. Before that I worked in
the Regional Police Directorate as a criminal police officer in
the field of organised crime, prostitution, trafficking of human
beings, also smuggling of very high value goods, and before that
I worked for three years in another police directorate in Celje
in juvenile delinquency. Although I am rather young I started
my police career when I was 14 when I went to the police school.
At that time in Slovenia we had so-called cadet police courses
so I went when I was 14 to this police high school and then at
18 I started as a police officer in a small police station in
Krško.
Q296 Chairman:
You began by saying you were honoured to come to meet us. I have
to say, listening to that, that we are very honoured to meet you.
Mr Crepinko: Thank you.
Q297 Chairman:
Perhaps I could begin. How would you describe the quality of the
communication between the police operational level in Member States
and the policy makers in the Council?
Mr Crepinko: In the Council or—
Q298 Chairman:
In the Council of Ministers.
Mr Crepinko: This is an interesting question,
not very related to the role of the Management Board.
Q299 Chairman:
But if I am right the Management Board comes between Europol on
the one hand and the Commission and the Council on the other.
Mr Crepinko: It is a very interesting
point of view. I never thought of the Management Board in that
way. You could maybe say it is in between but I do not see it
as something in between the policy-making in Brussels and the
operative field back home. Maybe when giving this evidence I will
switch hats from Deputy Director in Slovenia to the Chairman to
make it more colourful. I see the Management Board as a managing
body of Europol, not so much as a bridge to Brussels. Okay, there
are some actions that have to be taken from the Management Board
to the Council to get approval, but, as I said, I see the Management
Board more Hague-based, if I can simplify it like that, rather
than as a bridge to Brussels. It is an interesting interaction
between the operative field in the Member States and the Management
Board and then to Europol. That is a really interesting situation.
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