REVIEW OF THE HAGUE PROGRAMME (11228/06,
11223/06, 11222/06)
Letter from the Chairman to Joan Ryan
MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office
Sub-Committee F (Home Affairs) of the House
of Lords Committee on the European Union considered this package
of Communictions at a meeting on 22 November 2006. The three documents
are also under scrutiny by Sub-Committee E[114]
and I have written to you in relation to the particular issues
relevant to institutional and judicial co-operation in criminal
matters. We would like to seek additional information on some
home affairs aspects of the Communications.
With regard to the Communication on evaluation,
we note that you share the Commission's view about the need for
thorough evaluation of measures on justice and home affairs. However,
in order to form an overall picture we believe it is necessary
to monitor not just implementation of legislation, policies and
action plans but also operational action. For instance, operations
of agencies such as FRONTEX are subject to very limited scrutiny
and accountability, and an independent external evaluation of
the Agency has not yet taken place. In previous correspondence,
to which we still await a reply (see my letter of 18 October 2006
concerning Document 11880/1/06), we also questioned the fact that
this Agency is to be given a broader remit with the RABITs proposal,
in the absence of such an evaluation having taken place—an
argument that you seemed to endorse. Does the Government agree
that operational actions by agencies set up to pursue justice
and home affairs policies need to be monitored and subjected to
transparent, objective and thorough evaluation? Is the Government
still of the view that the proposal to establish RABITs is premature
in the absence of an independent evaluation of the work of the
European Borders Agency?
In relation to your comments on specific policy
areas in the Way Forward Communication, we are very disappointed
at the Government's persistent lack of support for the harmonisation
of the collation of Country of Origin information on account of
concerns about standards and costs. It is not clear to us why
standards should be compromised by this exercise. With regard
to your concerns about costs, has any assessment been made of
their magnitude, particularly in relation to the cost of running
Country of Origin information systems in each Member State?
You have also expressed your support for the
Framework Decision on the Principle of Availability and the parallel
Data Protection Framework Decision. Could you tell us why there
has been such lack of progress on these measures? We were anxious
that the Framework Decision on the principle of availability should
not be taken forward at the expense of progress on the Data Protection
Framework Decision, but the Committee has heard nothing about
it since it last examined the proposal in January 2006. We would
be grateful if we could receive a detailed progress report on
negotiations over this proposal. We would also like to know how
both Framework Decisions will be affected by the Prum Convention,
which the upcoming German Presidency allegedly intends to propose
to apply to all Member States as an EU measure. We are aware that
nothing is said about this Convention in the Way Forward Communication,
and we wondered whether this is right given that it is clearly
an important development in determining the future direction of
Justice and Home Affairs policies.
The Committee is keeping the documents under
scrutiny pending receipt of the information requested.
22 November 2006
114 Refer to "Review of Hague Programme"
under Sub-Committee E (Law and Institutions). Back
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