The Swedish Presidency & The Stockholm Programme

16 Jul 2009

Caitriona Heinl

The Swedish Presidency & The Stockholm Programme

Sweden currently holds the Presidency of the EU, which runs from the beginning of July to the end of December 2009. The Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council is chaired by the Swedish Ministers for Justice, and for Migration and Asylum Policy, Beatrice Ask and Tobias Billström respectively, and it is due to meet four times during the six-month rotation.  The first of these four meetings, an informal meeting of the Ministers for Justice, the Interior and Migration is being held this week in Sweden (15-17 July) to discuss cooperation in JHA policy and a new work programme, due to be implemented this year.

By way of background, the Tampere Programme was agreed in 1999 at a European Council Summit, and followed in 2004, by the Hague Programme, which was agreed at a European Council Summit in the Netherlands. Both programmes consisted of a five-year work programme to be implemented across various areas of Justice and Home Affairs policy, thereby setting guidelines and providing a framework for continued work in the JHA policy area for that five-year period. The Hague Programme is due to run its course by the end of 2009 and a new framework is due to be implemented for the period beginning 2010.

The Stockholm Programme:

This new programme, for the period 2010-2014, which is now referred to as the Stockholm Programme, should be agreed by the end of this year and it is due to be negotiated during the Swedish Presidency.

The European Commission issued on 10 June 2009 a Communication on the Stockholm Programme entitled “An area of freedom, security and justice serving the citizen”. This Commission proposal is intended as the basis for discussion of the new JHA work programme; and at the first informal meeting of the Swedish Presidency this week, Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs are discussing what should be contained in the Stockholm Programme. Ministers Ask and Billström have stated that this proposal of the Commission is to be relied on by Member States and the European Parliament in their negotiations on the future of JHA policy.   

After the informal meeting this week, the Stockholm Programme will then be discussed in the meeting of the JHA Council between 30 November and 1 December 2009 and that of the General Affairs and External Relations Council between 7 and 8 December. Finally, it should then be formally adopted at the European Council Summit on 10-11 December 2009.

Issues to be negotiated for the new framework:

The Commission has laid out in its communication four main priorities for the Stockholm Programme.

1) The protection of fundamental rights - The privacy of European citizens must be ensured, with particular focus on the protection of personal data;

2) Easier access to justice - Increased access for European citizens to the courts of another Member State is to be facilitated; reduced barriers to trade and commerce by allowing for changes to contract law should be introduced; and increased cooperation between legal professionals in Europe should be improved;

3) The development of a domestic security strategy - The cooperation and coordination of police, customs, and law enforcement authorities in Member States should be strengthened as should external border controls; and

4) An EU-wide policy on immigration and asylum - This should ensure solidarity between Member States and cooperation with non-EU countries.

Some of the specific measures outlined by the Commission include, amongst others: to completely abolish intermediate procedures for enforcing court decisions in another Member State; to set up an exchange programme for police officers, and improve the existing exchange programme for the judiciary; to create an information system architecture to improve the exchange of information between European police forces; and to increase the research effort in the area of security technologies.

On behalf of the Swedish Presidency of the EU, H.E. Mr. Claes Ljungdahl, Swedish Ambassador to Ireland, stated in his address to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs on 30 June, that there is a need for the EU to “continue to develop towards a more secure, yet open, Europe where the rights of individuals are safeguarded.” It is important to note that the European Commission has also proposed increased efforts to ensure that ordinary citizens have ready access to the benefits of an area of freedom, security and justice, and that the rights of the individual are accordingly protected in a more secure Europe. Opinion polls have shown that EU citizens are concerned about the fight against crime and that they feel increased cooperation is important. However, there is a need to ensure that a balance is struck between increased security initiatives and the protection of the individual’s rights to privacy. The balance to be drawn in this area may prove difficult to negotiate in the lead up to the implementation of the Stockholm Programme. Civil liberties groups have recently criticised the Commission’s June 2009 proposals for leading to a “surveillance society”, and it may prove difficult to maintain the balance between respect for civil rights and increased police cooperation and security measures. The Swedish Presidency has also explained that, with the new Stockholm Programme, it is important that there should be a move from European cooperation to tackle terrorism and police cooperation to protecting the rights of the individual such as improving the rights of suspects, improving mutual recognition of judgments, improving judicial training, and developing online justice. The Swedish Ministry of Justice has in fact stated that the Stockholm Programme should focus more on issues which concern the citizens of Europe such as providing increased legal certainty across the Member States.

It intends to promote a section on the rights of victims of crime in the Stockholm Programme and there will also be a focus on the rights of suspects; a conference on judicial protection from the individual’s perspective is to be arranged by the Swedish Presidency. Other issues of concern, which are to be negotiated, include tackling organised crime, tackling the sexual exploitation of children, and managing information. Positions are also to be decided on the agency recently proposed by the Commission to manage databases.

As mentioned, an EU-wide policy on immigration and asylum is one of the four main priorities of the Commission. It would like the new work programme to continue moving towards a common asylum system and to introduce increased burden-sharing and solidarity amongst Member States. The issue of asylum and immigration is of major concern to Member States and negotiations in this area may also prove difficult over the next six months.

There is a call for a voluntary system of burden-sharing so that border countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Malta may share the burden by distributing refugees evenly throughout the EU. The Commission recommends a common strategy among EU Member States regarding immigration and it proposes equal rights in Member States for immigrants.

There is work in progress to ensure that there is a fairer distribution among Member States of costs and responsibility for asylum seekers. The role played by Frontex, the EU external borders control agency, will therefore come under increased scrutiny for future efforts to tackle illegal immigration. Issues arising regarding Frontex include tougher readmission policies, levels of expenditure, staffing, regional offices, and whether it should have its own equipment. The Commission would like an increased role for Frontex in order to deal with external border control.

Whether the common asylum system should include a common resettlement scheme will be negotiated and the Swedish Presidency also intends to push for measures to harmonise the way in which Member States deal with asylum matters such as processing asylum applications, reception conditions, and the return of immigrants.

As an independent forum, the Institute does not express any opinions of its own. The views expressed in the article are the sole responsibility of the author.