Moves afoot to make Europol more effective and efficient

THE arrest and sentencing of an Algerian terrorist in Northern Ireland was an example of what good cooperation between police forces could achieve, the man who co-ordinates anti-terror activities in Europe said at the weekend.

The gardaí worked with police from three other countries and Europol to get a conviction against the 27-year-old man with Al-Qaeda links last month.

Europol was set up six years ago to facilitate the sharing of information between Europe’s police forces in their battle against organised crime and terrorism.

While the agency has had a number of notable successes, it is not achieving what it could, according to Gijs de Vries, the EU’s first counter-terror co-ordinator. It was the first agency of its kind set up by Europe’s justice ministers. It does not come under the control of the EU, but is an inter-governmental agency, funded by the member states and with its headquarters in The Hague.

Its legal basis ensures that it can move only very slowly with the agreement of all the governments at every turn and it still appears to be viewed with suspicion by both governments and police.

Seven countries have not even ratified all the protocols on Europol, including Ireland, which says the legislation is in train.

But while some countries are dragging their feet, others are moving ahead and have left Europol behind.

Last May, seven countries - Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Netherlands, Austria, France and Germany - signed a treaty agreeing to share DNA and fingerprint data, have common rules on aeroplane security and, in extreme cases, allow their police forces to pursue criminals across national borders.

Mr de Vries would not point a finger at either governments or police, but said a new less bureaucratic basis must be put in place to allow Europol work more efficiently against terrorism, organised crime, drugs and people trafficking.

The situation has been improving a little and the result has been an increase of over 50% in the amount of work handled by Europol over the past year with many notable successes, he told justice ministers over the weekend in Vienna.

As well as the Algerian found with information on making a bomb and smuggling it on to a passenger jet, they helped with a number of other high profile cases. These included:

* Breaking up a people smuggling network from Afghanistan to Britain with 52 people arrested;

* Breaking up a paedophilia and child pornography network that stretched from France to Latin America with the arrest of more than 100 people involving police from 13 EU countries;

* Dismantling a counterfeiting scam in Bulgaria.

More than 3,000 arrest warrants have been issued and more than 1,000 arrested and 729 extradited from one member state to another since the European Arrest Warrant was introduced two years ago.

Mr de Vries and EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini hope police will co-operate more and support changes due to be included in a report on how to make Europol more effective and efficient to be published later this year.