Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
WEDNESDAY 25 JUNE 2008
Mr Robert Crepinko and Mr Alfredo Nunzi
Q320 Chairman:
How many?
Mr Crepinko: I do not know that; I am
sorry.
Q321 Chairman:
Was it one or two or something like that?
Mr Crepinko: I do not remember. It was
enough that the proposal did not go through. I do not remember,
I am sorry.
Q322 Lord Marlesford:
I want to ask again about the Management Board and the performance
of Europol. Perhaps I could start by asking to what extent does
the Management Board guide or lay down the priorities for Europol
because it was explained to us about the Analysis Work Files,
of which I think there are now 18, and the decision to set up
such programmes obviously was a very important decision. Is that
the sort of decision that would be made with a proposal from Europol
to your Board or could your Board make a suggestion to Europol
that they should set it up? What is the guidance relationship
between you and Europol?
Mr Crepinko: When you are talking about
guidance of priorities the Management Board is the organ giving
the priorities to Europol, and when you are talking about Analysis
Work Files it can go, as we said in the previous question, both
ways. It can be either proposed by Europol because of the needs
they have discovered when doing maybe other Analysis Work Files
or it can come from one or more Member States that feel this is
one area that should be dealt with in this way.
Q323 Lord Marlesford:
So on the whole—and it is difficult for you to answer—how
satisfactory do you find the performance of Europol in general?
Mr Crepinko: Again my answer will be
with both hats. As the Deputy Director in Slovenia I am very satisfied
with the services we are getting as the Slovenian criminal police
from Europol. When I am talking as the Chairman of the Management
Board I can say that I am satisfied. Otherwise I would be obliged
to take some action during my chairmanship to improve that.
Q324 Lord Marlesford:
In a sense you could ask the question do you need the Board or
could Europol function perfectly well on its own, but presumably
there are two things. One is that you would, as you said, set
priorities and you would do that from your Member States' input,
but, of course, they do also have the Member State inputs direct
to Europol from the liaison offices. Is that a useful duplication?
Mr Crepinko: Yes, I think it is because
through the liaison bureaux there is the operative input, the
police input, and from the Management Board there is the policy-making
strategic input, so this does not overlap in my opinion. As I
said before, it is very valuable to have these boards to build
these strategies.
Q325 Lord Marlesford:
Supposing a nation decides that Europol should be switching some
priorities or doing something about an important problem. Would
they normally communicate that direct to Europol? Would they communicate
it, say, in the case of Slovenia, through you, or would it come
from Coreper at a political level?
Mr Crepinko: Again, you are talking about
27 Member States, so it varies a lot between the Member States.
There are different ways in which Member States tackle the issues.
Q326 Chairman:
You answered Lord Marlesford a few moments ago by saying that
during your period as Chairman of the Management Board you have
not made any initiatives in order to improve the working of Europol.
Does that mean to say that during this six months, which is almost
over now, you could find nothing at all to criticise in the workings
of Europol and that you have taken no steps to try to change things
for the better? That sounded as though it was the implication
of what you said.
Mr Crepinko: My Lord Chairman, I hope
I was not misunderstood. I did not want to say that I did not
do anything to improve the work of Europol in this period. The
initiatives of the Presidency have been reflected in the Work
Programme, in the budget, in several documents. I just said that
I cannot say that I am critically dissatisfied with Europol's
work because otherwise I would have to take some action. I have
personally done a lot of things along the way on how to improve
Europol's working, and not only as the Presidency, of course.
All 27 Member States at each meeting try through these different
mechanisms to improve the work of Europol because when we go back
home it is our main interest that Europol is strong and that it
functions well.
Q327 Chairman:
Could you tell us what was the Management Board strategy during
the drafting of the Council Decision?
Mr Crepinko: The Europol Management Board
was not involved in the preparation work for the draft Council
Decision. The involvement of the Management Board started officially,
if I am not mistaken, at the March meeting when we established
the ad hoc committee to prepare all implementing rules necessary
for the draft Council Decision or for the Council Decision then
to come into power. Because the draft Council Decision was prepared
here in Brussels in the Europol working party, it was their responsibility
to prepare the document.
Q328 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
Mr Crepinko, you are obviously a Chairman who sees the Europol
glass half full rather than half empty. I say that genuinely,
not in criticism. This is a bit of a complicated question so I
will try and put it carefully. The new Council Decision on Europol
puts responsibility on the heads of Europol national units to
discuss proposals that will improve Europol's operational effectiveness,
encourage commitment from Member States and evaluate the reports
and analyses drafted by Europol. Is this a move of operational
responsibility away from the Management Board onto the heads of
Europol national units?
Mr Crepinko: If you will allow me I would
just like to add to your remark. Not only as Chairman and not
only in regard to Europol, I am a glass half full person and it
helps in difficult situations.
Q329 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
I agree.
Mr Crepinko: I do not see it as a switchover
from this responsibility to the heads of Europol national units
because already it is their responsibility to make sure the operative
field is covered, so I just think—and this is my personal
opinion—that it states more clearly—
Q330 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
What is already happening?
Mr Crepinko: Yes.
Q331 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
On information systems, under the Council Decision Europol can
establish other systems for the processing of personal data besides
the Analysis Work Files/Index System and the Europol Information
System (EIS). Have you any plans to develop these new databases?
Mr Crepinko: I can say only that Europol
is the whole time developing new systems that could be more effective,
a better tool, a better help for its users, and I think that can
only be welcomed if there is a need for new systems to be introduced.
In the Management Board life is very dynamic because a lot of
initiatives are raised. Some of them are buried, some of them
go further, and there are already at this stage initiatives on
new information systems.
Q332 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
Just developing that slightly,—and we discussed this with
another witness; we talked about the fact that it is not so much
how much information you get but the quality of information—are
you able to encourage that approach, that sometimes less is more?
It is as much about quality as about quantity?
Mr Crepinko: This is a very important
issue and it has been already brought up to the table of the Management
Board meetings on several occasions. It has become a regular issue
at every meeting because awareness of the importance of it is
very high. At the Management Board level we can encourage Member
States to go in this direction, to improve the quality, and also
the quantity, of their information into the system, but this is
again one of the situations where I have to be honest: it is also
our responsibility when we go back home to ensure that this happens
in our police forces, not only at some meeting level.
Q333 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
Can you give us an appreciation of the work of the Security Committee
and indicate the main sources of difficulty from a Europol security
point of view?
Mr Crepinko: I am sorry; I did not understand
the question.
Q334 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
You are not familiar with the work of the Security Committee?
Mr Crepinko: I am, yes.
Q335 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
Can you give us some description of its work? How big an issue
is security from a security of information point of view, from
a Europol point of view?
Mr Crepinko: I will give you an example
to answer this question. I am not well oriented in time because
everything happens so fast these days, but Europol had needed
for several months to get security accreditation for its information
system that was then given by the Management Board in March, so
it shows that already all the modern systems have been introduced.
The level of security needed for such an organisation as Europol
is so high that it needed several months and several meetings
for improvements before it got the clearance for it to be used,
so it is a very important issue for this organisation.
Q336 Lord Young of Norwood Green:
And you think we have reached the right level now, do you?
Mr Crepinko: I might answer this very
simply. We will never reach that level.
Q337 Chairman:
Perhaps I can ask you a question which I asked yesterday in Europol
with regard to the security of information and the extent to which
information leaks. If you had to grade it between one and ten,
ten being the fact that you could not sleep at night because you
were so worried that nothing was sacred and everything leaked
and everybody knew exactly what you were doing, and one being
absolutely perfect, which you have just said is virtually impossible
and I accept that, where would you put the protection of sensitive
information in Europol between one and ten?
Mr Crepinko: From the position of the
Chairman I can surely not give that mark, so I will again switch
to my Slovenian hat. I can say that it is very high. From my experience
with our Europol national unit, when I go back into the days when
I was working in the drug field and we wanted to either give or
get some information from the system, it was very well structured.
The security measures that, for instance, Italy put into the system
will not lose their way. It was very high, so it is numerically
not able to make a grade but I would certainly say it is very
high.
Q338 Lord Marlesford:
We were told that there were difficulties, for example, in the
personnel positive vetting system, checking that individuals were
reliable. We have a system in England which is called positive
vetting and we have classifications of "restricted"
at the bottom, which merely means that you cannot give it to the
press, to "confidential", to "secret" to "top
secret". We were told by Eurojust that there were real difficulties
in some parts of Europol, but again, asking you with your national
hat on, do you think your system of positive vetting is rather
similar to ours? It is very elaborate in Britain and very tough.
Mr Crepinko: We introduced a very similar
system in 2002, if I am not mistaken, and it has been a big issue
back in Slovenia just to fill in these gaps, just to make sure
that it all functions, and it still is a big issue. To go back
to the Europol issue, the security of the information is one of
the main concerns of Europol, not only in the Member States but
also it is one of the biggest things when we are talking about
agreements, co-operation or operative or strategic agreements
with third states. It is one of the big letters and it is an obstacle
a state cannot step over if it is not fulfilled 100%. I think
it is being paid a lot of attention and I think it is also necessary
that it is like that.
Q339 Lord Marlesford:
My earlier suggestion was that it might be useful if the intelligence
agencies of the 27 nations had a more direct input. From their
point of view I can see they would probably be more worried than
the police about this particular aspect and it could be a barrier.
Mr Crepinko: By the information I have
also had when there have been checks with other European agencies
to see if these systems match each other, if confidential is confidential,
if the documents are handled the same way, I can tell from the
discussions I have heard or read that Europol's standards are
very high.
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