Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to reassure you that I will not need the full ten minutes that have been allocated to me. Mr President, the two reports that I have the honour of presenting to our Assembly today are very different in scope and nature even though they both deal with the same subject, namely Europol which, as we all know, is the European Police Office. The first report was drawn up on the initiative of the Kingdom of Belgium, and relates to the adjusting of the basic salary and allowances of Europol staff. The scope of the report is very limited and it obviously does not require very lengthy comment. Quite simply, I formally call on Parliament to reject this initiative for two fundamental reasons. First of all, I do not see why – and I hope that Parliament will support me on this point – Europol staff should be given a salary increase of 5.2% for the period 1 July 2001 to 1 July 2002, when, over the same period, European Union officials based in the Netherlands – in the same city of The Hague – will receive an increase in their salary and allowances of 4.3%. No serious or credible justification for this increase has been given. Secondly, I think it is inconsistent and unacceptable for the Council to consult the European Parliament on such a routine issue, when it systematically refuses to do so on the Europol budget, despite the fact that both decisions fall under the procedure laid down in Title VI of the Treaty on European Union which stipulates that the European Parliament must be consulted. I therefore have no hesitation and no qualms in proposing that this initiative be rejected. The second report, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, deals with a different matter altogether. It has been drawn up on the initiative of the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of Spain and proposes, in addition to a necessary change to Europol’s tasks, a new mechanism to amend the Europol Convention. As things currently stand, ladies and gentlemen, Europol is, as you know, an institution which comes under the umbrella of inter-governmental cooperation pure and simple. Within this framework, any change, however important or however urgent, to the Europol Convention requires ratification by all the Member States in accordance with the requirements of their respective constitutional rules. In other words, for example, it took no less than three good long years to ratify the Europol Convention. This procedure, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is obviously too lengthy, too slow and totally inadequate if we want Europol to have the capacity to take swift action against the manifold forms of serious crime. The initiative of the Kingdoms of Belgium and Spain, which proposes that the Council should from now on adopt further amendments to the Europol Convention, seems to be a step in the right direction. In reality, in my opinion and the opinion of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, this initiative has three major shortcomings: 1. it restricts Europol, in law, within the ambit of simple intergovernmental cooperation, contrary to the express requests repeatedly submitted by the European Parliament and at a time when the European Council, at nearly all its meetings, is entrusting to Europol an increasing number of tasks to be carried out on behalf of the Union; 2. after enlargement of the Union, this decision may well cause excessive slowness, or even result in an impasse, in the decision-making procedure, given that the Convention stipulates and will continue to stipulate that all decisions relating to Europol must be taken by the Council acting unanimously. I ask my fellow Members how they think 27 Member States will be able to agree unanimously on operational police decisions, with crime levels as they stand in Europe and with serious crime spiralling out of control in certain sectors; 3. this proposal confirms the purely marginal role to be played by the European Parliament with regard to everything relating to Europol, while depriving it of the legal means and institutional framework which might enable it in the future to exercise genuine democratic control. I hope there are no objections regarding the fact that, thanks to the Convention, the national parliaments can now exert a degree of democratic control over Europol. Anyone who is familiar with the way Europol works and the way in which the national parliaments work is well aware that, at the moment, there is no proper or effective democratic control over Europol. The Council’s choice to propose a mechanism which possesses the major shortcomings that I have just mentioned is all the more incomprehensible, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since the Treaty provides for an alternative route which would provide a simple solution to the problems that I have just outlined. All we need to do is to use the provision which is formally enshrined in Article 34(2)(c) of the Treaty on European Union as this would enable the Council to simply replace the Europol Convention with a decision. The use of this provision would have the direct effect of integrating Europol into the third pillar and, consequently, into Community legal order, with the following three considerable advantages in the short term: 1. the improvement of Europol’s operational capacities, since, pursuant to Article 34 of the EU Treaty, all decisions relating to Europol are to be adopted by the Council acting by a qualified majority with no derogation possible; 2. the improvement of parliamentary scrutiny of Europol, since, pursuant to Article 39 of the EU Treaty, the European Parliament should be consulted before the Council adopts any implementing measures and, secondly, Parliament may bring an action before the Court of Justice should these rights not be respected; 3. the automatic application of the rules governing the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice to all the decisions adopted by the Council pursuant to Article 34 of the EU Treaty, something that Parliament has constantly called for. On the basis of this argument, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I call on the House to reject the initiative of the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of Spain, due to its lack of operational and democratic substance. It is a bad day for the Kingdom of Spain! I also call on the House to approve the draft recommendation which seeks to transform the Europol Convention into a Council decision and to thus incorporate it into the institutional system of the European Union. I would like to point out to Mrs Frassoni in particular that, as far as I am concerned, this operation must only be a transitional phase, and preferably a short one at that, before integral communitarisation takes place, in other words, before the treaties are merged and the paralysing and archaic distinction between the three pillars is abolished. I hope that, in this area, the Convention will live up to the historical challenges that lie ahead and the expectations of the citizens.

Political group: PPE-DE