WRITTEN QUESTION P-0533/02

by Ilka Schröder (GUE/NGL) to the Council

(19 February 2002)

Subject: Arrest of Mr Rodríguez Fernández with the help of Eurojust

On 16 January 2002, Mr Juan Ramón Rodríguez Fernández was arrested in Amsterdam on a charge of having assisted ETA's Gorbea cell by passing addresses of the suspected right-wing extremist Pedro Varela on to someone else connected with ETA. As Jungle World No 7, published on 11 February 2002, put it, that was tantamount to passing on details of targets to be attacked. However, such information is freely available to anybody who looks it up in the Barcelona public telephone directory.

According to the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, the arrest was the first fruit of the new Eurojust system, the EU system for judicial cooperation. According to the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, issue dated 20 January 2002, it was carried out very rapidly in response to a request submitted under the Eurojust system by the Spanish Public Prosecutor to his Dutch counterpart. According to Statewatch, a non-governmental organisation, the case was handled by pro-Eurojust (see www.statewatch.org/news/2002/feb/02eurojust.htm).

Is the Council aware of the circumstances surrounding the arrest and of its legal basis? If so, what might that legal basis be? If not, which department of the EU or of one of the Member States is responsible for providing information to MEPs and to the general public?

To what extent was pro-Eurojust or Eurojust involved in the arrest, and on what legal basis was Mr Fernández arrested?

Does the Council feel that the available evidence (passing on a publicly available address) falls under the definition of terrorism as described in the Framework Decision on combating terrorism (14845/1/01 C5-0680/2001 2001/0217(CNS))?

Reply

(22 July 2002)

Arrests made by national law enforcement authorities are entirely in the hands of those authorities and not a matter for the Council, which cannot therefore give any details of the circumstances surrounding the arrest in question or the legal basis for it.

Nor is the Council able to provide any information concerning any involvement of Pro Eurojust or Eurojust in such arrests.

In more general terms, it should be pointed out that Pro Eurojust was a provisional unit of 15 prosecutors and judges working entirely under national law, but established by a Council Decision. That Decision, superseded by the Council Decision of 28 February 2002 setting up Eurojust, did not give the provisional unit's members any coercive powers. The tasks assigned them did, however, include improving cooperation between competent national authorities with regard to investigations and prosecutions in relation to serious crime, particularly organised crime, involving two or more Member States.

The Decision of 28 February 2002 does not give Eurojust any coercive powers exercisable directly vis-à-vis the public, such as the power of arrest. It does, however, expressly include among Eurojust's tasks, whether acting as a college or through its national members, to assist the competent authorities of the Member States, at their request, in ensuring the best possible coordination of investigations and prosecutions.

The above is, moreover, without prejudice to Member States' conferral on their respective national members of judicial powers within their own territory.

As regards the last question, the Council does not comment on any cases pending before the competent national authorities.