Debate: Strengthening Europol’s mandate: cooperation with private parties, processing of personal data, and support for research and innovation
Date: TUESDAY, 3 MAY 2022
Speaker: Javier Zarzalejos
Country: Croatia
Language: EN

This Regulation is the result of a shared concern about the need to have a better and more efficient instrument to support Member States in a security landscape with evolving and increasingly complex threats. Let me underline that the Parliament has been at the forefront in promoting the Europol recast. I’d like to commend and express my appreciation for the work done by my colleagues, the shadow rapporteurs, from the very beginning of this process following the presentation of the legislative proposal by the Commission on 9 December 2020. We have dealt with sensitive issues from different views but we have been able to create an atmosphere of real cooperation and open exchange. No concern has been overlooked and no contribution has been disregarded. And let me add that in the best spirit of compromise even those outside the majority consensus can see some of the contributions reflected in this regulation. We have established a sound legal basis for the analysis and processing of large and complex data sets, and accordingly, there will be extended information sharing and enforcement rights for the EDPS on Europol planned data processing operations. Under the new mandate, Europol will cooperate effectively and directly with private parties for establishing jurisdiction. And will be allowed to exchange data with private parties directly in online crisis situations related to the massive dissemination of terrorist content and in the fight against child sexual abuse material online.  Europol will be able to support Member States in the use of emerging technologies and in developing common technological solutions. And under the new mandate, it will be possible for those projects to include the processing of personal data for the sake of security, subject to very tight safeguards. The new mandate also provides for the capacity of Europol to propose Member States the entry of information alerts in the interest of the Union in the Schengen Information System, based on information received from third countries or international organisations.  The new mandate clearly improves and widens the scope of the cooperation with the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). Europol and EPPO should conclude a working arrangement setting out the modalities of their cooperation, taking due account of their respective competences.  The increase of the capacities should ultimately be matched by adequate resources for Europol. But more importantly it will be accompanied by more transparency, parliamentary oversight, greater democratic accountability and a wide array of safeguards that guarantee full respect for data protection. That is a major political achievement of the Parliament and it shows our ability to reach reasonable and workable compromises, first among us, the political groups represented in this Parliament, and then with the Council. And I have to commend the role the Commission has been playing. I think that the Parliament has delivered on its duty. We have taken into account the new operational requirements of law enforcement, the necessary balance with the basic responsibilities of Members States, which remains in the hands of Member States, the conditions for an enhanced police cooperation and the safeguards and democratic oversight that go along these developments. A better governance, an efficient system of oversight and controls proportionate to the new capabilities that we place on the Agency will only result in a better and more efficient Europol which is fit for the challenge. That is exactly what this regulation is all about.