Counterterrorism Blog

EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers agreed today to move ahead with plans to expand cross border police and judicial cooperation on an operational and information-sharing basis to combat terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal migration. Meeting in Dresden, Germany, the Ministers took up a plan proposed by German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble (Germany took over the EU presidency January 1, 2007) which would result in an EU-wide network of national data bases accessible by participating countries with regard to the investigation, prevention and prosecution of terrorism, cross border crime, and illegal immigration. The system would be based on that outlined in the 2005 Prum Treaty, which just came into force in November 2006. The Treaty, which was signed May 27, 2005, envisages a broad range of cross border cooperation including information exchange, sky marshalls, counter-terrorism cooperation, illegal immigration, repatriation, joint cross-border policing operations, and civil crisis management. This agreement may now be expanded to become part of the legal framework of the EU. However, this will require enactment of the Prum treaty language in the form of new EU legislation. The Prum Treaty’s current adherents are Austria Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain. Italy, Finland and Slovenia had also stated their intention to join the Treaty.

This latest development would expand coverage throughout the EU.

The treaty, which is just now coming into effect, will expand joint police operations such as joint patrols and cross-border intervention to avert immediate danger. It grants executive powers to police officers of other contracting states to act in cross border situations, and will allow, for example, police officers from another member country to be deployed to enhance security at large-scale public events or civil disturbances in another country.

The Prum Treaty, and subsequent EU-wide arrangement, will also allow participating states to give one another automated access to specific crime-related national databases. They will have full and direct online readable access to a broad range of information which will include, inter alia, vehicle registration, DNA analysis files and dactyloscopic (fingerprint) files.

The treaty provides special authorities in cases dealing with counter-terrorism or traveling violent offenders. In such cases, member countries will have the ability to query national data systems of any of the participating countries to find out whether it contains data concerning a specific profile, including personal data. In other cases such personal data will be handled pursuant to mutual legal assistance arrangements.

The beneficial results of the Prum treaty are already evident, stated Minister Schauble:

“Under the treaty Austria and Germany have been able to check the contents of their national DNA databases against each other since early December 2006. This is the first time that two countries have granted each other access to their national police databases using a hit/no hit method. In just six weeks, when German untraceables were checked against the Austrian database, 1500 matches were found, and when Austrian untraceables were checked against the German database, 1400 matches resulted. “On the basis of these results, where untraceables could be matched with a person in the database, police investigators are now able to match hits with unsolved crimes. Thus, it can be expected that Germany and Austria will be able to solve unsolved crimes and prosecute and punish the offenders. “These figures are proof that the idea behind the Prüm Treaty to create a network of existing national databases is a simple, yet very effective means to fight cross-border crime and international terrorism.”