Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the dismantling of our internal borders and the police cooperation associated with it, as well as the securing of our external border, will be among the greatest challenges to face the European Union in the new century. Mr Oostlander, in his report, has earned our gratitude by referring in his report to the need for a common immigration policy on the external borders. My report, though, covers the future development of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement in the area of cross-border surveillance. Where the internal borders have already been dismantled, the national police are able, after consultation with the police of a neighbouring state, to observe suspects who are active on both sides of the border. Together with hot pursuit, the instrument of cross-border surveillance has thus to date, offered the most effective option in enforcing the law across borders. It was only last week that it became clear in Germany just how necessary such an arrangement is, when hostages were taken following a bank robbery and the culprits fled over the border into Poland and then into the Ukraine. Although there was good cooperation in this instance, an arrangement such as the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement would certainly have made enforcement even easier. The Council proposal is intended to extend the range of offences liable to cross-border surveillance by adding to them organised fraud, offences in connection with the trafficking in human beings, the laundering of proceeds from organised crime and dealing in radioactive materials. The question remains in my mind as to why we do not also fall back on the catalogue of terrorist offences that we adopted only a few months ago, which I see as having been a very important decision, and one that we should incorporate into this proposal. I therefore felt that Mr Buijtenweg's proposal, and the proposals made by other Members, had something positive to add. We otherwise find ourselves increasingly lost in a thicket of innumerable and different regulations on judicial cooperation in criminal matters. We will in the future have to work at standard penal frameworks significantly more than we have done in the past. At the same time, the fact is overlooked that the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement has to date suffered not only from a narrow scope of application, but also from bureaucratic obstacles. I have therefore proposed a number of systematic clarifications, which met with wide-ranging support in the committee. We should, then, have the courage to achieve real new developments and move forward with the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement. The number of times that cross-border surveillance has been used has tripled in the time since it was introduced. The most frequent obstacle, according to the officers engaged in its implementation, is often the lack of a right of arrest. Officers carrying out surveillance duties on foreign territory have hitherto had to watch impotently as crimes were committed. They are not permitted to intervene, but can only inform their colleagues with jurisdiction in that state, who tend themselves to be stretched to their full capacity already. By the time they, in their turn, intervene, the culprits are, as a rule, over the hills and far away. I therefore propose that it should also be possible for foreign police officers engaged in cross-border surveillance work to detain culprits until police officers of that state arrive, if, firstly, an extraditable offence has been committed and, secondly, if that State's own police are no longer in a position to prevent the offence being committed. It is no doubt impossible to get our European citizens to understand why foreign police officers may observe, but are unable to intervene when the situation becomes critical and a crime is being committed. In this respect, we should be significantly better at adapting our laws to the realities of this Europe of ours, which is growing together. The Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, however, continues to develop, it is my firm conviction that there is a need in a Europe that is growing together, for the European Union to have real police competences. Within the framework of the Convention, which, as is well known, is looking to reshape the Treaties, we will not only be able to discuss what competences we might have to relocate in the Member States, but we must also specify the areas in which we additionally need primary competences at a European level. The combating of organised crime, and across borders at that, is one such area, one where we as a Parliament must emphatically make the point that, in order to facilitate control by Parliament and by the public prosecutors, we need a primary police executive for a limited sphere of activity. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE