A Watchdog for Europe's Policemen: The Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group for Europol

Abstract

The Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group for Europol (JPSG) will meet for the first time in Brussels in the autumn of 2017. Its creation was agreed by the EU Speakers Conference (the Presidents of the EU’s national parliaments and the European Parliament) in April 2017. With this decision, the idea of a body to ensure parliamentary scrutiny of the European Police Office (Europol) finally manifests itself in the JPSG. In the emerging Security Union that the EU seeks to create, also in reaction to recent terror attacks, the responsible actors at the EU level must be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. According to Article 51 of the new Europol Regulation No. 2016/794, the JPSG will play an essential role to “politically monitor Europol’s activities in fulfilling its mission, including as regards the impact of those activities on the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons.” In its first part, the Policy Paper examines the political difficulties to move forward with respect to intentions and provisions for enhancing the parliamentary scrutiny over Europol. The in-depth analysis of the positions of national parliaments and EU institutions is based on reports, resolutions, publicly available minutes and amendments to draft conclusions as well as other texts. This paper evaluates the agreement on the JPSG for Europol as promising. The second part of the Policy Paper presents concrete proposals in order to make the JPSG work efficiently: The JPSG should complement the existing scrutiny of Europol by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in the European Parliament and it should adopt ambitious Rules of Procedure at its first meeting in order to clarify and fix its internal functioning. The new body could subsequently become a blueprint for interparliamentary scrutiny in the EU.