Issues
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The EU has created a great deal of legislation that Member States must then transpose into national law. In June 2002 the Framework Decision on combating terrorism came into force, compelling all Member States to comply by December 31, 2002. The Framework Decision offers a definition of terrorist offences, terrorist groups, offences relating to terrorist activities, and penalties. At the same time the European Parliament also approved a European Arrest warrant framework decision with little debate. Both these documents raised concerns among civil liberties organisations on how they would affect the right to protest but little debate occurred on either policy. There is a conflict of laws between many of the surveillance policies emerging from the EU and the existing privacy protection regimes. Building on the right to privacy contained in the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU established a Directive on privacy and data protection in 1995. Both these regimes are supposed to limit the breadth and scope of surveillance. The EU Directive on data protection is one of the leading pro-privacy regulatory regimes in the world. It establishes the requirement upon member states to implement laws that are ingreat accordance with fair information practice, enforced by national regulators, or information commissioners, who oversee the act and respond to complaints. But this regulatory regime is being debased through policy laundering. The Hague ProgrammeA sinigificant proportion of current policy activity is now taking place under the Hague Programme for Freedom, Justice and Security . Announced by the European Council in November 2004, the Hague Programme was created behind closed doors and was released to the public only right before it was approved by the Council. While the preceeding programme, the Tampere Programme from 1999 had as its core value the respect for the rule of law, this was removed in the Hague Programme in favour of an emphasis on "cross border problems" such as illegal migration, terrorism and organised crime. The programme's stated objectives include:
With the intention of turning the programme's broad principles into 'concrete action', in May 2005 the European Commission launched its 5-year Action Plan for Freedom, Justice and Security. It contained detailed proposals for EU action on terrorism, migration management, visa policies, asylum, privacy and security, the fight against organised crime, and criminal justice. Some of the more problematic powers include the increased international data sharing lacking adequate controls such as dual criminality and adherence to national law and increased monitoring of communications and financial transactions. Though not all the initiatives at the EU fall within the Hague Programme, the programme will play a decisive force in the future. |