McDowell criticises EU justice ministers

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell deeply criticised his EU counterparts yesterday for proposing criminal laws that were based purely on theories rather than reality.

Mr McDowell said that, since taking up office, he had been unimpressed with meetings of EU justice ministers. EU ministers put forward points just for the sake of it and 30% of the meetings were taken up with complimentary remarks being made about the chairman, he said. It was bad enough with 15 members, but the mind boggles about what will happen when there are 25 when he chairs the meetings next year during Ireland’s EU presidency: “If you saw what goes on at the Justice and Home Affairs Council it would make you weep.”

Arguments for harmonisation of criminal law structures and penalties and transnational crime and international terror cases being tried and punished by the EU was about as flawed a proposition as the claim that tax harmonisation is necessary, the Minister said: “The arguments for it are far outweighed by the arguments against it. The problem is preceded by the solution. I don’t want to be told here is a theoretical solution to a problem that has not manifested itself so lets go for it.”

EU justice and home affairs commissioner Antonio Vitorino was an intelligent and bright person, said Mr McDowell, yet believed that criminals tend to set up in countries where the penalties are lower.

“This notion is put forward that they sit down in Mafia Central and say we have to locate our drugs headquarters in Copenhagen as the sentences are three years less than in Dublin,” he said. “I have no doubt some organised criminals do sit down and discuss locations, but I don’t think they look at penalties but, rather, police co-operation and intelligence.”