Consultation response to the European Commission’s call for evidence on a new Europol regulation
The European Commission launched a call for evidence to gather views on the reform of Europol’s mandate. Europol is the EU law enforcement cooperation agency. EDRi along with Resist Europol coalition members submitted a response to the consultation, sharing their concerns about this renewed expansion of powers, despite Europol’s numerous issues around opacity and lack of accountability.
Yet another reform to expand Europol’s powers
The European Commission is eager to transform Europol, EU’s law enforcement cooperation agency, and give it more operational powers. In her political guidelines for the Commission’s current mandate, President Ursula von der Leyen proposed “to make Europol a truly operational police agency and more than double its staff over time”. She added that “this should come with a strengthened oversight and mandate”. Consequently, the Commission has launched a consultation process to review the rules that currently regulated the agency’s mission and activities – even though the previous reform has not yet been voted on.
The increase of Europol’s powers is particularly worrying in a context of increased criminalisation of social movements, migration and acts of solidarity. Recent revelations by investigative journalists show the agency’s involvement in the prosecution of human rights defenders and its implications in illegal data sharing practices with EU border control agency, Frontex. Reinforcing Europol’s surveillance infrastructure is also happening in parallel to the deployment of ever more intrusive technologies by Member States’ police authorities, leading to severe rights and freedoms violations.
What does our submission response to the Commission say?
EDRi has submitted a response with the input of members of the “Resist Europol” coalition. The submission highlights many concerns with the stated aims of the reform, its likely impacts on fundamental rights, and suggests alternative issues for for which an EU action would be urgently needed in order to ultimately guarantee justice, accountability and safety.
For example, instead of increasing Europol’s data collection, areas of competence and surveillance capacities, EDRi calls on the Commission to assess Europol’s role in perpetuating discriminatory policing, police brutality, criminalisation and other harmful treatments in law enforcement.
