6 June 2011 — Statewatch

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STATEWATCHING EUROPE: Civil Liberties, the state and the European Union Saturday 25 June 2011 (10.00-17.30)
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
Programme and Registration form: www.statewatch.org/conference/conference.pdf
Book Online: www.statewatch.org/ordering/order.html

1. EU: General Report on Europol’s activities 2010
2. EU: FRAUD AND CORRUPTION
3. Council of Europe: Internet Governance Principles
4. EU: European Parliament: Body Scanners
5. EP: Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE): “Orientation” vote results
6. EU: Right to information in criminal proceedings: trilogue
7. EU: Commission and the High Representative: A new response to a changing Neighbourhood
8. EU: Regulation on public access to documents: the European Commission is the problem
9. EU: INTERNAL SECURITY: UK House of Lords Select Committee on the EU
10. Hungary systematically arrests asylum seekers – including minors
11. EU: European Commission: Southern Mediterranean
12. EU: European Commission Communication: A Single Market for Intellectual Property Rights
13. UK Asian people 42 times more likely to be held under terror law
14. UK BORDER AGENCY: Home Affairs Select Committee
15. EU: Article 29 Working Party Opinion on ‘smart mobile device’ operators with regard to geolocation
16. EU-COE: EU accession to the ECHR
17. EU: Charter of Fundamental Rights: Council of the European Union: FInal draft Conclusions
18. EU: Access to EU documents: Council of the European Union to appeal the Access Info Europe judgment
19. EU-AUSTRALIA-PNR
20. EU: Visas to be re-introduced for Western Balkan countries

EU: General Report on Europol’s activities 2010:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-council-europol-general-report-10244-11.pdf

2. EU: FRAUD AND CORRUPTION: European Commission: On the protection of the financial interests of the European Union by criminal law and by administrative investigations: An integrated policy to safeguard taxpayers’ money (COM 293, pdf) and Commission Staff Working Paper (SEC 621):
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-com-fraud-com-293-11.pdf

3.  Council of Europe: Internet Governance Principles:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/coe-internet-governance-principles.pdf

4.  EU: European Parliament: Body Scanners: MEPs back body scanners but want strict safeguards (Press release):
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/ep-body-scanners-prel.pdf

“MEPs on the Transport Committee agreed Tuesday that the use of body scanners in EU airports would enhance security but said it should be voluntary. They approved a report by Spanish Christian Democrat Luis de Grandes Pascual that backs the use of body scanners so long as they don’t interfere with passenger privacy or pose health risks. The report should be voted in the plenary on 23 June.”

and Draft Report: www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/ep-body-scanners-draft-report.pdf

5.  European Parliament: Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE): The Committee has agreed “Orientation” vote results on the following two measures:

– Orientation Vote Result on the proposal for a regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2007/2004 establishing a European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (FRONTEX):
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/ep-libe-ctte-orientation-vote-on-amending-frontex-reg-mar-11.pdf

– Orientation vote held on 14 February 2011 during the extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a directive on combating sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/ep-libe-ctte-orientation-vote-on-child-pornography-feb-11.pdf

“Orientation votes” are part of the “trilogue” process where the European Parliament is meeting with the Council of the European Union in secret meetings – no documents are published – to discuss, as two legislatures, a new measure. The “Orientation vote” document compares the original Commission proposal with the position to be taken by the LIBE Committee in the trilogue meetings. The EP position agreed needs to be compared with the text (”compromise”) that emerges as the final text agreed with the Council at 1st reading. Documents on the Council’s position are not made public.

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch Director, comments:

“This a very welcome but small advance in making secret trilogues more open. The first essential step is that all the documents from the Council, the EP and the Commission discussed at these meetings have to be made public as they are produced. This needs to be followed by introducing a timetable that enables national parliaments and civil society to digest, discuss and make their views known. There is a fundamental principle in a democratic system that meetings of legislatures must be public – secret 1st reading deals should be no part of EU decision-making”

See: European Parliament: Abolish 1st [and 2nd] reading secret deals – bring back democracy “warts and all” :
www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-84-ep-first-reading-deals.pdf

and Secret trilogues and the democratic deficit:
www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-64-secret-trilogues.pdf

6.  EU: Right to information in criminal proceedings: Discussions in the trilogue between the Council and the European Parliament: Result of the 2nd trilogue (pdf) and State-of-play 3rd trilogue (pdf). And see: Council of the European Union: Outstanding issues:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/ep-right-to-info-2nd-trilogue-note.pdf

See: Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the right to information in criminal proceedings Trilogue 18 April 2011 Comparative table:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/apr/eu-ep-council-right-to-info-crim-proced-trilogue-columns-at-18-apr-11.pdf

7.  EU: Joint Communication from the Commission and the High Representative: A new response to a changing Neighbourhood:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-com-eeas-neighbourhood-com-303-11.pdf

including “Intensifying our political and security co-operation” and “Migration and mobility”, hence see also: European Commission: Southern Mediterranean: towards a new era of dialogue and partnership. When the Commission talks about “dialogue and partnership” you know it is really about “security” and “migration”:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-com-med-memo.pdf

8. EU: Regulation on public access to documents: the European Commission is the problem:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/065eu-access-reg-commision-the%20problem.htm

– in its 2008 proposal the Commission put secrecy above openness by increasing the power of the institutions to refuse access to documents above establishing the public’s right to know

– the Commission failed to withdraw its 2008 proposals which are incompatible with the Lisbon Treaty, because of its proposal to change the definition of a “document”: “the definition of ‘document’ is an issue of primary law, ie the interpretation of the Treaty by the Court of Justice – it is not open to the institutions to define it in a way which limits the correct interpretation and application of the Treaty. In other words the rules on access to documents must apply to all ‘documents’ as defined by the Treaty – they cannot exclude entirely from their scope anything which is a document as defined by the Treaty.” (Professor Steve Peers)

– the Commission 2011 proposals fails to abolish Article 4.3 of the Regulation in line with the Lisbon Treaty: the institutions’ “space to think” in secret

– “for two years the Commission has “sat on its hands” and failed to respond to the “institutional impasse” between the Council and the European Parliament, it should now produce a completely new “Lisbonised” proposal” (Tony Bunyan)

9.  EU: INTERNAL SECURITY: UK House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union: The EU Internal Security Strategy (90 pages): The Committee observes on the Standing Committee on Internal Security (COSI):
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-internal-security-uk-hol-report.pdf

“There should be greater openness about COSI’s activities so that it does not appear to be secretive and lacking in transparency. We have recommended that inter-parliamentary oversight of the work of Europol could be by bi-annual meetings of the Chairmen of the home affairs committees of national parliaments and the LIBE Committee of the European Parliament. We believe that such meetings could also consider the work of COSI.”

See Statewatch’s Observatory on Internal Security:
www.statewatch.org/iss.htm

10.  Hungary systematically arrests asylum seekers – including minors! (The border is the problem, link): “The Hungarian authorities detain, almost without exception, every asylum seeker. And this includes those that applied for Asylum and have been deported back to Hungary under the Dublin II agreement from Germany or other European nations.”:
w2eu.net/2011/04/20/hungary-systematically-arrests-asylum-seekers-%E2%80%93-including-minors/

11. EU: European Commission: Southern Mediterranean: towards a new era of dialogue and partnership: When the Commission talks about “dialogue and partnership” you know it is really about “security” and “migration”:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-com-med-memo.pdf

12.  EU: European Commission Communication: A Single Market for Intellectual Property Rights Boosting creativity and innovation to provide economic growth, high quality jobs and first class products and services in Europe:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-com-ip-rights-287-11.pdf

and FAQ: www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-com-ip-rights-faq.pdf

13.  UK Asian people 42 times more likely to be held under terror law – People from ethnic minorities more likely than white people to be stopped under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act (Guardian, link):
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/23/counter-terror-stop-search-minorities/print

“The power is contained in schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows police to stop people at ports and airports for up to nine hours without the need for reasonable suspicion that they are involved in any crime.”

14. UK BORDER AGENCY: Home Affairs Select Committee: The Committee’s original report: The work of the UK Border Agency and noted that “we are are not at all convinced that the UK Border Agency is being effective in making sure that its contractors provide adequate training and supervision of their employees in respect of the use of force”:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/jan/uk-hoc-hasc-uk-border-agency.pdf

15.  EU: The Article 29 Working Party has recently adopted an Opinion on the extensive privacy obligations of ‘smart mobile device’ operators with regard to geolocation:
ec.europa.eu/justice/policies/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2011/wp185_en.pdf

“Since smartphones and tablet computers are inextricably linked to their owner, the movement patterns of the devices provide a very intimate insight into the private life of the owners. One of the great risks is that the owners are unaware they transmit their location, and to whom. Another, related, risk is that the consent for certain applications to use their location data is invalid, because the information about the key elements of the processing is incomprehensible, outdated or otherwise inadequate.”

The conclusions note specifically the EU data protection directive (link), currently under review by the Commission, is the legal framework applicable to geolocation data from smart mobile devices: www.statewatch.org/news/2006/oct/com-dp-1995-46.pdf

“Location data from smart mobile devices are personal data. The combination of the unique MAC address and the calculated location of a WiFi access point should be treated as personal data”

Press coverage: Location data should qualify as personal data, watchdogs say (out-law.com, link): “Geolocation information on where a person has been should qualify as personal data and be protected by EU data protection laws, a European data protection group has said. It said that users should be asked to consent to every new use of the data.”: www.out-law.com/page-11937

16.  EU-COE: EU accession to the ECHR: 7th Working Meeting of the CDDH Informal Working Group on the accession of the EU to the ECHR with the European Commission (16 May 2011):
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-coe-accession-16-may-11.pdf

17.  EU: Charter of Fundamental Rights: Council of the European Union: FInal draft Conclusions: Draft Council conclusions on the Council’s actions and initiatives for the implementation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-council-final-conclusions-charter-10139-rev1-11.pdf

18.  EU: Regulation on public access to EU documents: Council of the European Union to appeal the Access Info Europe judgment: The Foreign Affairs Council agreed to the appeal being lodged at its meeting on 13 May (”A” Point – adopted without debate), see: EU doc no: 9491/11:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-council-appeal-access-info-9491-11.pdf

Background: Major victory for openness: The General Court of the ECJ has found in favour of the NGO Access Info Europe for access to a Council document containing the position of Member States concerning amendments to the EU Regulation on public access to documents: Full-text of ECJ judgment:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/mar/eu-ecj-access-inf-judgment-mar-11.pdf

When Access Info Europe applied for the document the names of the Member States putting forward amendments. The ECJ overturned the Council decision to refuse access to the full contents of the document under Article 4.3 of the Regulation on the grounds that it would “seriously undermine the institution’s decision-making process”. See: The case for the repeal of Article 4.3:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/mar/05eu-access-regulation-com-amend-mar-11.htm

The document in question concerned discussions within the Council on amending the Regulation on public access to EU documents – the document dated 26 November 2008 was put online by Statewatch on 5 December 2008: EU doc no: 16338/08 ). Much of the ECJ’s judgment concerns the alleged effect of Statewatch’s disclosure of the full text of the document on the Council’s decision-making procedures:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/mar/eu-council-acess-regulation-ms-16338-08.pdf

19. EU-AUSTRALIA-PNR: European Commission: Proposal for a Council Decision on the signature of the Agreement between the European Union and Australia on the processing and transfer of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data by air carriers to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service:
www.statewatch.org/news/2011/may/eu-com-pnr-australia.pdf

20. EU: Visas to be re-introduced for Western Balkan countries (euractiv, link):
www.euractiv.com/en/enlargement/visas-introduced-western-balkan-countries-news-505024

“The European Commission said it will propose tomorrow (24 May) to reintroduce visas for Western Balkan countries whose citizens abuse the system. The measure will punish countries such as Serbia and Macedonia for failing to stop their citizens from taking advantage of visa-free travel rights to request asylum once they reach one of the EU’s 27 member states.”

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