arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT SUPPORTS EU DEFINITION OF TERRORISM AND EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT On Wednesday 6 February the European Parliament voted, by an overwhelming majority, to support the two proposed Framework Decision on combating terrorism and on creating a European arrest warrant. An attempt by the Green/EFA group of MEPs to get an amendment to the European arrest warrant proposal was defeated by 412 votes to 122 against with 20 abstentions. The Green/EFA group and the ELDR (Liberals) group backed the amendment, the PSE (Socialist) and PPE (Conservative) groups voted against. The Framework Decision on combating terrorism was agreed by 484 votes to 32 against with 34 abstentions. The two Framework Decisions, originally put forward by the European Commission, were substantially amended by the Council of the European Union (the 15 EU governments) and thus had to be re-submitted to the European Parliament. However, the European Parliament chose to simply endorse the Council proposals. SIX EU GOVERNMENTS AGREE EARLY IMPLEMENTATION OF EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT Six EU governments - the UK, France, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg and Spain – have agreed to implement the European arrest warrant a year ahead of the deadline: by the beginning of next year 2003, rather than 2004. The agreement was reached at the Informal Meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers being held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The six governments are to invoke Article 27.2 of the Framework Decision creating the European arrest warrant which allows states which have changed their laws to cooperate with others who have done the same. Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, commented that: "With the exception of Greece, this is a roll call of the countries that have most problems in providing basic rights to people who have been arrested. In practice, judges in Spain, France, Portugal and Belgium are notorious for holding people without evidence in the hope that some evidence will turn up... This [also] fulfils our worst fears about the recklessness of the British government in defending citizens' rights".