Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-14-Speech-2-208"
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"en.20060314.25.2-208"2
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".
Mr President, Vice-President Frattini, Mrs Hazan, honourable Members of the European Parliament, firstly, let me thank you warmly on behalf of the presidency for this report on the evaluation of the European Arrest Warrant, which I have read with great interest. The Presidency shares your view – as indeed do I – that the European Arrest Warrant has, in essence, been a success. It has certainly been a milestone in improving cooperation between the European Union’s Member States, particularly as regards our common desire to combat organised crime and terrorism.
While I am on this subject, I would like to mention a case brought by Belgium before the European Court of Justice, in which the Court is asked to scrutinise the aspects of the arrest warrant relating to fundamental rights. Our expectation is that the Court will deliver an unambiguous ruling not only on the issue of the legal basis but also on that of the list of crimes in respect of which the double criminality test no longer applies. This list of 32 crimes has been the subject of recurrent debate, and we look forward to a clear statement concerning it.
Once such a clear ruling has been delivered, there will, without doubt, be further deliberations as to whether this list needs to be revised, and perhaps we can leave the matter there. Further conclusions will then be drawn as to whether that would be proper or worthwhile.
Let me take this opportunity to point out that the Presidency of the Council sees it as most important that we should treat the uniform application of the framework decision in the individual Member States of the European Union as a core priority. That is necessary if we are to make the mutual recognition principle a living reality.
It is also not a matter of dispute that, when the European Arrest Warrant is executed, the state executing it must safeguard human rights and, in particular, adhere to procedural safeguards. That, too, must be our common concern.
The presidency, like your House, takes it as read in this regard that the application and functioning of the European Arrest Warrant will need to be evaluated by means of thorough and unbiased examination. That is a quite essential consideration, and it is for that reason that the Council has already decided on a fourth round of mutual evaluation. The work entailed by this is running to timetable. From it we expect further results derived from practice, from which detailed knowledge applicable to practical implementation may emerge.
As for the practical use to which the European Arrest Warrant is put, I would like to state, very briefly in view of the time available, that long-term support for its implementation is available in the shape of information, readily accessible on the Internet, and provided not only by the Council Secretariat, but also by the European Judicial Network, and that the judicial atlas is also rendering outstanding service in this, so that the direct contact between the judicial authorities, which is so urgently necessary to the best possible application of the European Arrest Warrant has thereby been made considerably easier.
I would also like to highlight another aspect of not inconsiderable importance as regards practical application, which is that the European Arrest Warrant has made it possible for such formalities as certifications and so on to be kept to a minimum in proceedings between one state and another, for we now know that we do not need them if we trust each other and the mutual recognition principle is a lived reality. I believe that the European Arrest Warrant has had a quite vitally important part to play in this.
I therefore look forward to the rest of the debate, following which I will have a few other things to say in my concluding statement.
I believe we can also agree that it is of a quite new and exemplary character and has made an essential contribution to the further development of the mutual recognition principle, to which Mrs Hazan refers at several points and on which we agreed at the Tampere Council. We in the Council, at any rate, regard the European Arrest Warrant as the foundation for all the further work we will do in this area. I am particularly glad that your House shares our view.
Perhaps we might look back and recall how extradition procedures were formerly very long, unwieldy and, in many respects, dependent on political decisions. All of us who are active in this field found this state of affairs intolerable. All 25 Member States have now transposed into their own legal systems the framework decision on the European Arrest Warrant. If we look at how things stand today, we see that the procedure for handing over suspects is now speedy, efficient and, as a matter of principle, reserved to independent courts. That is of quite considerable benefit, and it is this framework decision that has made it possible.
It is also important that it has been possible – as the honourable lady who spoke before me stated – to quite considerably reduce the time that the extradition process takes. Until now, it generally took on average nine months, but the average time has now been reduced to between 40 and 45 days. That represents quite substantial progress, particularly in terms of fundamental rights, for you will all be aware that Article 5(3) of the Convention on Human Rights requires us to contribute to the speeding up of the processes by which people are taken into custody. This framework decision on the European Arrest Warrant has enabled us to largely comply with this requirement.
Despite the fears that you voice in your report about the critical views expressed in the rulings of national constitutional courts concerning transposition in some Member States, the presidency is not aware of any fundamental rejection of the European Arrest Warrant at national level. I myself am not aware of any, and I am sure that this is not happening. On this point, though, we must also bear in mind the fact that public confidence is to a large degree dependent on our conceding the possibility – for which there are certainly good legal reasons – of the implementation at national level for which we are making provision under the Framework Decision being subject to scrutiny by national supreme courts. That is a quite essential consideration. If such scrutiny reveals the need for some change in transposition at the national level, then that change will be carried out, but what really matters is that the public should have confidence in what we are doing at the European level.
Something else that is important and could make for repeated difficulties in interpretation – although I do not take as critical a view of this as you do in your report – is the exemplary character of the fundamental rights clause, which is not, formally speaking, a ground for rejection. That, too, is a quite essential consideration.
It is important, though, that we should allow our national courts to perform their essential function within the Member States, that being to examine whether their country’s legal system guarantees protection for fundamental rights. I do not believe that there should be any contradiction in this.
I do, however, perceive a contradiction in this report, in so far as it highlights, on the one hand, the risk of the discriminatory use of the fundamental rights clause, while at the same time – and this is something else I can fully endorse – stressing the need for the European Arrest Warrant, in its application, to specifically protect human rights and personal freedoms. Care must be taken that these do not conflict with each other.
As I have already said, the role of the national courts must be to ensure, on the basis of the fundamental rights clause, that the fundamental rights of our citizens are not infringed. That, too, must be part of the procedure under the European Arrest Warrant."@en1
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