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One of the main priorities of the current German presidency, the inclusion of the Prüm's Treaty into the EU legal framework, is likely to be achieved before its end in 30 June 2007. During its last meeting on 15 February the EU JHA Council agreed on incorporating into EU legislation most of the Treaty provisions falling into the third pillar.

This decision will create the largest pan-European network of police database, including DNA profiles, fingerprints and other personal and non personal data. Originally signed in May 2005 by seven EU countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Spain), later joined by nine others member States (Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden have announced their intention to adhere), the Treaty has been designed under the lead of French-German cooperation in view of "combating terrorism, cross-border crime, and illegal immigration". The Treaty has been ratified up to now by Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, while the French Senate adopted on 21 February a draft ratification law.

The Treaty provisions have already been used by Germany and Austria to check their national DNA databases against each other. Although the Treaty future incorporation into the EU legal framework would, at least partly, answer the main criticism of creating a hierarchy within the EU and of circumventing the Parliament, major concerns remain, like the assimilation of illegal migrants to terrorists, which - to say the least - questions the principle of proportionality.

Another major concern is obviously privacy and data protection. While mutual access to databases and exchange of information to better fight crime and terrorism is not, in principle, illegitimate in a regional space like the EU, making this space a true area of "Justice, Freedom and Security" needs solid prerequisites both at the national and at the EU level.

At the national level, police databases are endlessly growing in member States, containing more and more very sensitive information, especially biometric data. They are no more restricted to identifying criminals, but are now extended to the average citizen, allowing the mapping of their daily activities, communications and movements. They are also characterized by high error rates, due to both fault rates intrinsic to the used technologies and to the lack of police database updates, inter alia in accordance with judicial outcomes of the recorded cases. Sharing such files among 27 countries would certainly increase not only massive surveillance but also the risk of flaws endangering innocents.

At the EU level, current legislation protecting privacy and personal data protection has little, if any, application at the third pillar level, while EU-level information systems in this field are broadening. Discussions have started on a Commission proposal of a Council Framework Decision on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters (DPFD). However the numerous reports of the Council's Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime have seriously lowered the originally proposed level of protection, taking no account of the Parliament and the European Data Protection Supervisor opinions. The DPFD good proceedings have in addition been greatly hampered by the lack of agreement between member States, to the extent that the German presidency asked the Commission to prepare a revised proposal. While the resulting level of protection of European citizens' personal data is subject to future DPFD developments, a bottom line should reasonably be that the DPFD be adopted prior to any further development in cross-border data exchange, most notably before the incorporation of the Prüm's Treaty provisions into the EU legislation.

EU JHA Council Press Release (15.02.2007)
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/jha/9...

Text of the Prüm's Treaty (27.05.2005)
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/05/st10/st10900.en05.pdf

Center for European Policy Studies. "Security and the Two-Level Game: The Treaty of Prüm, the EU and the Management of Threats" (2006)
http://shop.ceps.be/BookDetail.php?item_id=1292

Statewatch updated observatory of DPFD proceedings
http://www.statewatch.eu/eu-dp.htm

(Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI-member IRIS)