Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
WEDNESDAY 25 JUNE 2008
Mr Robert Crepinko and Mr Alfredo Nunzi
Q300 Lord Mawson:
We learned that the European Criminal Intelligence Model builds
upon the UK intelligence-led policing approach. Is intelligence-led
policing a concept that is welcomed in most Member States?
Mr Crepinko: I am aware that the Organised
Crime Threat Assessment that is being conducted in Europol has
its origins in the UK Intelligence Model. I see what I have experienced
in the Management Board but also back home—this is now me
switching hats—it is a very well appreciated model. It has
been accepted by the Member States. Although it had all new approaches
it had a period of very hard work to get it through, but I think
for the time being it is a very well acknowledged system and this
is one of the reasons the Slovenian Presidency put as one of its
priorities to introduce such a model in the Western Balkans. I
do not know if you are aware but there is an initiative to introduce
a so-called SEEOCTA, a South Eastern European OCTA, so new states
can learn from good experiences in the EU in this field and find
a better way forward in intelligence-led policing.
Q301 Baroness Garden of Frognal:
The new Europol Council Decision introduces an 18-month tenure
as Chairman of the Management Board. What do you see as the advantages
and disadvantages of this length of office?
Mr Crepinko: Thank you for the question.
It is very interesting because it comes now when my period of
the chairmanship is almost over. As you are all aware, Germany,
Portugal and Slovenia were the first trio Presidency, so we decided
almost 18 months ago to try something similar with this 18 month
chairmanship of the Management Board in the future. Always after
six months the Chairman of the Management Board changes. The main
needs of criminal policing in Europe are known so there are not
big changes, but nevertheless the person changes and the personal
handling of the issues changes every six months, so I see advantage
in an 18-month period for a more stable way of handling these
important issues. Talking about the disadvantages, I can only
say from my personal, if you like egoistic point of view that
out of what would have been three Chairmen two of them will not
have the possibility of enjoying the pleasure of being the Chairman.
I do not see any other disadvantages.
Q302 Baroness Garden of Frognal:
Would there be different ways in which you would have worked if
you had had a longer tenure of office?
Mr Crepinko: I would not say it would
be different. When people ask me, "Are you happy that it
is soon to be over?", I answer them, "No, I am not",
because you need some period of time to get into the business
and if you had some more time maybe you could achieve more because
you could prepare. I was preparing very hard for a long time for
this job but when you are in the field it is a bit different.
Q303 Baroness Garden of Frognal:
But will it improve the Management Board to have a longer tenure?
Mr Crepinko: I think it will have a positive
impact on the Management Board.
Q304 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
What we hope is that it will give the Management Board more time
to focus on strategy and maybe less temptation to, shall we say,
deal with the day-to-day running and leave that to the Director.
Mr Crepinko: I do not see a big impact
in that field because strategy is from my point of view not so
related to this changing of chairmanships every six months. I
think that already with the establishment of the Management Board
there are no big threats to having the temptation to go to day-to-day
work. It is not like that.
Q305 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
It does not happen?
Mr Crepinko: It might have happened sometimes
but the reason was not because of the legal circumstances in which
the Management Board operates. The reason is not that it changes
every six months.
Q306 Chairman:
I wonder if I can go back. Lord Mawson asked you a question a
minute ago in which he asked whether you felt intelligence-led
policing was a concept that is welcomed in most Member States.
When we talked to the Commission this morning we asked them a
question about a working paper on criminal intelligence-led law
enforcement which was originally planned for 2005 and has been
delayed and delayed and delayed, and all they could tell us was
that it had not been implemented, although it was a decision taken,
because it was—the word they kept using was "premature".
Why do you think that working paper on intelligence-led law enforcement
has been delayed? We pressed them very hard to see what reasons
there were for Member States to block it, which they clearly have
done. What is behind all this because one would have thought that
intelligence-led law enforcement was something which most people
would welcome?
Mr Crepinko: My Lord Chairman, I hope
you will not be offended when I say that I would really not like
to comment on the decisions made in Brussels, or was it by one
of the European agencies or the Member States? I can only now
go back to my own country, to Slovenia. We think it is a very
good approach and we are struggling very hard to introduce it.
Because our development is rather short in this field in comparison
with some other Member States I can only say—but it is real
speculation—that you are talking about 27 Member States.
Maybe there are different cultural, social environments or maybe
it is simply the way states handle their day-to-day criminal police
work. Maybe that is the reason that some Member States are taking
more time to come to the conclusion that it is a good thing.
Q307 Chairman:
I wonder if the Secretary has a comment on that.
Mr Nunzi: I do not have a comment on
this issue.
Q308 Chairman:
So you think that just endless delay is acceptable?
Mr Crepinko: As I said at the beginning,
the Brussels machinery works in its own physics, so from my position
of Chairman of the Management Board I cannot comment on the reasons
for the delays if there are any.
Q309 Baroness Garden of Frognal:
If we can refer back to the Management Board, do you expect that
the demands on the Secretariat at the Management Board will increase
under the new arrangements? Will the workload increase?
Mr Crepinko: I think it will. I can say
for the time being that the workload on the Management Board Secretariat
is already very high, but I think under the new regulation the
workload will get even higher.
Q310 Baroness Garden of Frognal:
Are there any particular areas where you think it will be more
demanding?
Mr Crepinko: I could hardly comment on
that.
Q311 Lord Marlesford:
Can I go back before I ask the next question on the agenda to
something which Lord Jopling asked earlier on, which was your
opinion on the intelligence-led policing for Europol, and expand
that question a little bit? One of the conclusions that came to
me yesterday, having spent the day with Europol, was that the
importance of fighting terrorism, which is obviously considerable,
is very much based on the police experience of Europol and I wonder
whether there is a case to be made to say that there should be
more direct input for the purpose of fighting terrorism into Europol
from the various intelligence agencies, the non-police intelligence
agencies. In our case it would probably be the Security Service
MI5, and other countries have their own. At the moment it is all
based on police intelligence and the police network, whereas,
of course, in the case of the United Kingdom, the Security Service's
main task now is trying to protect us primarily from Islamist
terrorism. Do you think there is a case for having a more direct
input into Europol from the intelligence services?
Mr Crepinko: As you are aware in the
current organisation of Europol, the Europol national unit, already
it is possible to settle these things at the national level. It
is one of the discussions we often have also in the Management
Board. Maybe sometimes there is no need to change anything at
the top, but—and I told this also to the Member States as
the Chairman—there are a lot of things we can do back home
and we need to do back home. There are no hindrances back home
to adding information to improve the data quality in the information
system of Europol. From my personal feeling I do not see a real
need for the time being to change the concept of Europol, but
I know in some Member States there are really big discussions
on how to improve that at the national level.
Q312 Lord Marlesford:
Is the size of the Management Board, 27 people, an obstacle to
good governance and what do you anticipate the role of the Commission
will be on the Board when the Commission becomes a full member?
Mr Crepinko: Being a member of, if I
may say so, one of the new Member States, I can only say that
a bigger number of countries represented in the Management Board
is not a hindrance but vice versa: it is an added value, because
when we talk about what are the hindrances to intelligence-led
policing my answer to that question is that more countries, more
views, more experiences can only add to the common goal. Okay,
it is perhaps a bigger challenge to chair 27 Member States than
a lower number but I think it is a good thing; I do not think
it is bad. Also, while the European Commission has only observer
status in the Management Board there are already some very good
inputs from their side, so they are already a very active player
in the Management Board although technically they only have observer
status. I do not see any big changes in that.
Q313 Lord Marlesford:
So it will not make a lot of difference?
Mr Crepinko: I do not think so.
Q314 Lord Mawson:
What in your opinion makes for an effective organisation? What
conditions do you have to have in order to have an effective organisation?
Mr Crepinko: It is a very good question.
When I was preparing for this hearing I was—"afraid"
is too strong a word. My English is on a certain level but not
only my English. When we are talking about languages, the Slovenian
language has a small amount of words for some things, if I may
say so, and English has a much bigger amount, and I was afraid
that we would get into some fields where in my translation to
English from Slovenian we have one word and you have a lot of
them, so I would like to apologise for not answering this because
I do not know how to describe it in English. I can only put my
Slovenian hat on and say that an effective organisation is an
organisation that completes its tasks at a very good level.
Lord Mawson: Yes, but what needs to be happening
within an organisation? What conditions do you have to have within
an organisation to make sure that is happening? I think your English
is very good, by the way.
Q315 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
It is better than our Slovenian!
Mr Crepinko: I have a lack of words to
describe it, so I can only go to the basic answer. It is an organisation
where the goals are settled, the strategies to achieve those goals
are settled and all the players are known and the players are
doing their job in going through this strategy to these goals.
This is how I can explain my opinion of an effective organisation.
Q316 Chairman:
I am sure you are familiar with the old saying that the best committee
is a committee of one. Clearly a committee of 27 brings with it
difficulties. I ought perhaps to know the answer to this question,
but I do not. Who initiates new propositions within the Management
Board? Is it the Secretariat, is it the Presidency, or do your
initiatives come from the membership, from "in the hall",
as we say?
Mr Crepinko: This is the thing that makes
life in the Management Board so interesting, because the initiatives
come either from the Chairman—
Q317 Chairman:
Or from Europol itself, of course.
Mr Crepinko: Yes. There are various ways
in which they come in life. It can be the Presidency, it can be
Europol, it can be a group of Member States. It can be one Member
State by itself, so there are different ways in which initiatives
come to life and that makes it very interesting.
Q318 Chairman:
And if it is a proposal to change the way in which Europol operates
does it have to have unanimous approval or does it operate on
the QMV principle?
Mr Crepinko: It differs from the question
we are talking about. Everything is settled. It is either the
Convention or there are implementing rules they set up. There
are different quotas that need to be fulfilled for different questions.
Sometimes it is unanimous, sometimes it is a simple majority,
the qualified majority. It differs from question to question.
Q319 Chairman:
I think it would be helpful if we could have a note. I do not
think we have had a note, but I am told it is in the Decision.
Can you tell us how often in your period as Chairman a proposal
has failed because there were only one or two Member States who
were against it and blocked it?
Mr Crepinko: I can remember only one
such case when we were talking about establishing the police co-operation
in Kosovo. There was a proposal to establish police co-operation
at the operative level and the Management Board decided not to
do so upon the opinion of some Member States.
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