Eurojust and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the support he offers for the Government position. We have clearly set out genuine and real issues in relation to both these measures challenging some of the fundamental principles and aspects of our criminal justice system.

We also have concerns about the risks of reducing member states’ influence under the proposal’s revised governance arrangements. For example, the Commission has proposed the creation of an executive board with a very narrow composition, including the Commission itself, that would, among other things,

“prepare the decisions to be adopted by the College”—

the college being the body on which all member state national members of Eurojust sit. Moreover, the Commission has not proposed the creation of a management board along the lines of that which oversees Europol, which we think is better suited to effective governance of such agencies. In short, the proposal’s governance arrangements are unsound.

Fundamentally, we do not consider that the new Eurojust proposal is even needed at this time. The current legislation is still undergoing a peer evaluation which will not complete until next year, and the Commission has not put forward a convincing case as to why the new proposal is needed. There is not even a specific impact assessment from the Commission for its Eurojust proposal.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The Minister mentioned the Lord Advocate of Scotland. What discussions has the Minister had with the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations? What did they say to him about the Eurojust proposals?