William Francis Newton Dunn

SUBJECT: POLICE CAPABILITY

Recently there was a first Police Capability conference with a view to the agreed goal of creating a five-thousand-strong police force to be available for the Union' s civilian peace-keeping operations. Will the Commission report now to the Parliament concerning what progress was made and what are the next steps?

Patten, Commission. - The ESDP annex of the Göteborg European Council conclusions sets out where the European Union has got to as regards the development of a police capability for crisis management operations outside European Union territory. The honourable Member will recall that at the Faro meeting of the European Council in June last year, Member States signed up to an ambitious target of 5 000 police officers for international missions to be available by 2003. Preparatory work has progressed well since then. The necessary structures are being established in the Council, including a police unit in the Council secretariat.

The ESDP report to Göteborg contains a police action plan, which sets out the next steps in the process. A ministerial conference will be held by the end of 2001 at which the Faro commitments should be turned into specific pledges. The Belgian presidency will also continue work with the police experts' group to look in more detail at the modalities for implementation of the Faro commitments, particularly qualitative aspects, such as training, selection criteria and equipment. The Commission is being supportive of the efforts of Member States in creating this crisis management capacity, for example with the funding of training projects through the OISIN programme.

The Commission has also become more involved over recent years in local capacity building and police reform in post-conflict situations. Just to give some examples, the Commission is funding major initiatives for reform in justice and home affairs, including police, in a number of Balkan countries under the CARDS programme. In that context, the Commission will take over the WEU police mission in Albania. The Commission is also providing technical assistance and training to the police in Central America, in Guatemala and El Salvador, as part of the implementation of peace agreements in those countries. Furthermore, the Commission has recently started a programme of support to police training in Algeria.

Newton Dunn (ELDR). - I wish to thank my friend, the Commissioner, whom I have always found very helpful. This was an extremely full and helpful reply. I am sure that Parliament is most appreciative.

One matter surprised me a little, although I will read his reply in detail to study it, and this is the police unit set up within the Council. Am I right in assuming that command of a police force which is sent by us actually rests in the final analysis with the Council and not with the Commission, even though policing is demonstrably a peacekeeping and not a military operation?

Patten, Commission. - The honourable Member invites me to dig deep into the soil of competence and its related terrain. The provision, deployment and management of EU police officers for external crisis management missions is a competence of the Member States and the Council secretariat. So a police unit has been established in the new politico-military structures in the Council secretariat to carry out the detailed police action plan, which I referred to earlier, in coordination with the Member States and the Committee for Civilian Aspects of Crisis Management. I would not dare to trespass on what is legitimately the territory of Member States, but there is a role and a responsibility for the Commission.

I described how we have considerable experience in the field of police training. Indeed, we can make a particularly important contribution by trying to ensure that training in this area, and in others which are related to civilian crisis management, is compatible with that provided by the UN. The UN and the European Union - the European Commission - now have more experience than others in this area and it is absolutely imperative that we ensure that the training provided - whether for police officers, people running penitentiaries, justices of the peace or magistrates - is compatible and appropriate wherever their services are required. There is an important role for the Commission, but it is not the role of a sixteenth Member State.

Purvis (PPE-DE). - Will the Commissioner advise me whether these policemen will be, or can be, armed and what their terms of engagement might be?

Patten, Commission. - That will need to be determined case-by-case and situation-by-situation. Let me explain one of the problems we have in providing the policing capacity which is needed. What we are looking for is not a conventional community police officer. What we require is a trained officer - man or woman - who is capable of the traditional policing functions of detection, who is capable of providing community policing, and capable, from time to time, of the sort of paramilitary policing which is needed, for example, in parts of the West Balkans.

In the country I know best there are very few police forces who have that sort of capacity, which includes the regular use of arms. The police service in Northern Ireland is an example of a service which has that sort of all-round capacity. That is one reason why it is difficult to provide exactly what is required, but whether or not arms will always be necessary will depend on the circumstances. I hope that the success of policing will mean that arms, increasingly, are not required.