Justice and Home Affairs post-Council Statement

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Tuesday 18th July 2017 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Amber Rudd)]

The first meeting of EU Interior and Justice Ministers during the Estonian presidency took place on 6 and 7 July in Tallinn. I represented the UK for interior day and the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice represented the UK for justice day.

Interior day began with a discussion on migration through the central Mediterranean following the joint French/German/Italian/Commission declaration on 3 July and subsequent publication of the “Action Plan on measures to support Italy, reduce pressure along the Central Mediterranean route and increase solidarity”. The UK agrees work must continue on strengthening the EU’s external borders and I joined other Ministers in expressing support for Italian efforts and for the measures proposed in the action plan.

Ministers then discussed possible developments in EU returns policy. I stressed the UK’s commitment to working with the EU and member states in this area and expressed support for the proposals, presented by the presidency, to focus efforts on linking asylum and returns processes, improving the processes for unfounded asylum claims, and ensuring quick returns following quick decisions.

Over lunch, Ministers discussed ways of safeguarding the EU’s internal security through co-operation with neighbours. The focus was on how to co-ordinate EU and member state activities in helping Ukraine to fight serious and organised crime, improve integrated border management, and counter hybrid threats in order to mitigate possible negative impacts of the security situation in Ukraine on the EU’s internal security. The UK recognises the concerns arising from Russia’s action in Ukraine and I endorsed proposals to step up action to tackle the threat, noting the conference being held in London on 6 July to galvanise international support for Ukraine’s reform process.

Interior day ended with a discussion on next steps on data sharing and interoperability of EU information systems, following the final report of a high-level expert group on data sharing, June JHA Council conclusions on this issue, and the latest security union update from the Commission. The Government support the aim of increasing interoperability of IT systems and ensuring better use of existing data. Member states agreed that interoperability should ultimately increase protection of data, not lessen it, but that clear rules on purpose, access and use were required.

Justice day began with an item on data retention. Ministers explored the implications of the Court of Justice of the European Union judgment in the TELE2/Watson case from December 2016, and the circumstances in which member states would still be able to require the retention of communications data. The Government have played a leading role in official-level discussions on the effects of the judgment. The Justice Secretary led support from Ministers for the continuation of these discussions as a way of carrying out a comprehensive assessment of different options for data retention. The presidency concluded that work will continue in the Friends of the Presidency group on all possible options.

On sale of goods, the presidency posed three questions: whether the rules on offline sales should be aligned with those for online; whether the digital content rules agreed under the Maltese presidency were a suitable model; and how to deal with “smart goods” with embedded digital content. The Justice Secretary said that alignment of rules is desirable for business, except in cases where there would be increased costs and in areas where it would lead to decreased consumer protection in the UK legal system. The Justice Secretary also noted that fragmentation of rules for “smart goods” is undesirable and an evidence-based approach is necessary given the novelty of the area. The presidency noted the apparent agreement of EU Ministers to align the rules on off- and online sales, and to do so along the lines of the digital content agreement. The Commission said that, in the interests of speed, it would not issue a new proposal to extend the scope of the measure. Rather, it would accept the changes to that end proposed by the Parliament and Council.

There was a discussion on e-justice over lunch. The Justice Secretary expressed the UK’s support for the proposal to entrust the management of e-codex—which allows judicial systems to “talk” to each other online—to EU-LISA, the agency which manages other large-scale JHA IT systems (such as SIS II), so long as EU-LISA would not be over-burdened and unable to focus on its existing workload. Robust cyber-security would also be necessary. EU Ministers spoke broadly in favour of the proposal, but the Commission will not propose a legal instrument yet.

The meeting finished with an exchange of views from member states on the question of whether the instrument on mutual recognition of freezing and confiscation orders should be a regulation or a directive. The UK has opted in to this proposal and is committed to working with other member states and EU agencies in identifying and recovering criminal assets. The Government are neutral on the question of the choice of instrument, but have no objection in principle to a regulation, as long as that regulation does not adversely impact on domestic processes for issuing such orders. Other member states remain split. The Justice Secretary, supported by other member states, also noted specific concerns about a proposed new type of asset-freezing order.

[HCWS60]