Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-14-Speech-2-207"
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"en.20060314.25.2-207"2
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".
Mr President, Mrs Gastinger, Mr Frattini, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the opportunity given to us today to debate the European judicial area on the basis of my report on the still very recent, and therefore inevitably fragmented, assessment of one year’s implementation of the European Arrest Warrant. We have already had the opportunity to debate this matter.
Even more importantly, the issue of fundamental rights has given rise to considerable transposition problems in Poland and Germany. This difficulty must be interpreted as a failure to understand the principle of mutual recognition, and yet this principle is precisely the foundation on which the European judicial area is entirely constructed.
In conclusion, I would say that the European Arrest Warrant marks an important step forward in the fight against crime – above all in terms of serving Europeans - and in the creation of a European judicial area. The fact remains that there is still a host of problems and that these problems must not be underestimated. The first problem stems from the fact that our judicial systems are too different from one another. The second problem is that most of the Member States are still too keen to control international legal assistance. Even though the judicial system is a product of history, the issues that arise are going to have to be dealt with. To conclude: is more or less harmonisation needed? I believe that more is needed. Should more progress be made in terms of the mutual recognition of systems? I believe that, here too, the answer is yes.
Before turning specifically to the European Arrest Warrant, I should like to make one small point, because, underpinning this concept of a judicial area, which was formulated very gradually after the Geneva Appeal in 1996, was the ambition to give Europeans a common sense of justice in an environment in which the authorities do everything possible to prevent Europeans’ freedom – from being circumvented or their rights from being flouted.
In October 1999, the Tampere Summit marked an important stage, with the introduction of the mutual recognition principle. This change has been radical. It involves mutual confidence, the exercising of shared sovereignty and the recognition of the European area as a common territory.
Since then – as we have seen – problems persist and people need to be aware of these. It must be said that the inspiration and ambition that motivated the Heads of State or Government at Tampere have not injected the same degree of enthusiasm into the debates on the texts presented since then. Mutual recognition has inspired many projects, but it is the creation of the European Arrest Warrant that is undoubtedly the symbolic measure. The warrant does, in fact, represent a definite step forward, despite encountering persistent problems.
What, then, was the aim of this measure, which officially entered into force on 1 January 2004?
The European Arrest Warrant applies to a broader range of offences than those covered by the extradition procedure. Thanks to this warrant, the surrender procedure has become an entirely judicial, and no longer political, process – which is a bonus. The bottom line is that EU law can now be interpreted correctly by practitioners, whereas existing extradition law relies on an abundance of bilateral and national agreements. Furthermore, it has been pointed out on several occasions – including in Article 1 of the framework decision – that, when issuing and implementing the arrest warrant, the Member States and the judicial authorities must ensure that they strictly comply with the principles laid down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Once the principles of this instrument are laid down, how are they implemented? We now have at our disposal an assessment carried out, as I said, over only a short space of time by the European Commission, and we must therefore remain cautious when faced with the results of this assessment, which is not yet complete. Some of the planned objectives have been fully achieved. For example, the Arrest Warrant came in very useful recently in the prosecution of an Ethiopian suspected by the British authorities of having been involved in the London bombings. His extradition by the Italian authorities was obtained in record time. Another success was the arrest of a corrupt judge, wanted by her country, Greece.
The European Arrest Warrant is an undeniable success story, with 3 000 warrants issued in 2004, 1 000 people arrested and 650 people handed over. The 2005 figures will undoubtedly show an increase, but they will not be officially available until June or July. The extradition procedure has been made much shorter. By replacing the old extradition procedure with the European Arrest Warrant, the average duration of the procedures has gone from nine months to 43 days, which is an appreciable gain for both the judges and those standing trial. Lastly – and most importantly – the procedure is no longer in any way politicised because it no longer involves governments, but only the justice system.
It must be said, however, that the application of the European Arrest Warrant has hit several stumbling blocks. Last autumn, for example, and in response to Berlin’s refusal to extradite the German-Syrian citizen Mamoun Darkazanli, an alleged Al-Qaeda figure, Spanish law declared the European Arrest Warrant issued by Germany to be null and void. Several Member States are also attempting to reinstate elements of the traditional system, such as the verification of double criminality. To the optional grounds for non-execution provided for by the framework decision, some Member States have added other grounds for refusing extradition."@en1
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