EUOBSERVER(source)BRUSSELS - The UK wants to retain 35 EU-wide police and justice laws out of some 130 in its wider efforts to claw back power from the EU.
“We believe the UK should opt out of the measures in question for reasons of principle, policy, and pragmatism,” UK home secretary Theresa May told ministers in London on Tuesday (9 July).
Tory-right wingers want to repatriate all 133 laws, but May said the UK should retain its co-operation with the EU police agency, Europol, and the EU's joint judicial authority, Eurojust.
“We should opt in post-adoption provided that Europol is not given the power to direct national law enforcement agencies to initiate investigations or share data that conflicts with our national security,” she noted.
The European Arrest Warrant will also figure into UK’s provisional opt-in list but with added conditions to better protect British nationals of extradition to other member states in case of minor offences. May wants to amend the Extradition Act so that people in the UK can only be extradited under the European Arrest Warrant when the requesting state has already made a decision to charge and a decision to try. The UK parliament is set to vote and adopt the measures next week but opposition ministers say they need more time to examine the 159-page document that details the government’s full plans. Others accused the home secretary of double standards over the government’s stated position on EU-related justice issues.
May had previously suggested that the European Arrest Warrant was not in the UK’s interest. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said “the home secretary has been forced to admit the truth, Britain does need the European Arrest Warrant, it does need joint-investigation teams, Europol, the exchange of criminal records, and help to tackle online child abuse.” Other proposed desired opt-in laws include the principle of mutual recognition to financial penalties, confiscation orders, and simplifying the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement authorities with member states.
The UK has to accept all 133 measures, made before the Lisbon Treaty was adopted in 2009, or reject them all. If it rejects them all, it can then opt back into individual laws it wants to keep.
The decision must be made by June 2014 or all the EU laws, as of December of the same year, will be subject to oversight by EU judges as well as the European Commission’s enforcement powers.
“Following our discussions in Europe, another vote will be held on the final list of measures that the UK will formally apply to rejoin,” said May. Some senior government officials see the move as part of David Cameron’s push for an in/out referendum on its EU membership. MPs last week unanimously backed a bill that guarantees the popular vote by the end of the 2017. The opposition Labour party, however, boycotted the vote on the bill.
The commission, for its part, says it respects the UK government's choice to opt out, and welcomes the UK intention to also opt back into certain measures. “The commission will clearly need to take the necessary time to assess the indicative list of proposals for opting back in that the UK has outlined,” said a commission spokesperson in a statement. The commission will formulate an official position after it receives formal notice following the December 2014 deadline. Official negotiations between the two have yet to start.
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The European commission in Brussels, the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, the German government in Berlin and others are all at odds over who is to be granted the powers of deciding what to do about struggling eurozone financial institutions whose dismal performance have contributed hugely to four years of sovereign debt crisis that have shaken the single currency to its foundations.
The eurozone's answer is a new permanent banking union, making the ECB the single supervisor of Eurozone banks, alongside a banks resolution authority – and perhaps eventually a common Eurozone system of guarantees for depositors.
Wednesday's gambit to leave in Brussels the final decision on whether to order a bank closed down will be hotly contested in Berlin and Frankfurt. But Dijsselbloem, president of the eurogroup or the key committee of eurozone finance ministers since the beginning of the year, ruled out granting the powers to the ECB.
"The supervisory and the resolution authorities should not be the same," he said.
While the various actors tussle over who gets to take some of the biggest decisions in the single currency area, it is already clear the Dutch social democrat has already helped engineer a strategic shift during his first six months presiding over the crucial meetings of eurozone finance ministers.
In recent weeks the policy U-turn from bailouts to so called "bail-ins" has crystallised, shifting the onus of rescuing banks and propping up governments from public money and taxpayers to the banks themselves and their creditors, who will suffer big losses in future emergencies.
"It's the best way to address risk in the financial system," said Dijsselbloem, "the only way to get a healthy responsible financial sector."
The policy shift means that the eurozone's €500bn permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), is to serve as a backstop for the troubled currency, but unlike in the past may never be used. As the ECB prepares to oversee the banking sector, €60bn of that fund has also been set aside for bank recapitalisation. It is also clear that there is very little intention of using that instrument either.
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