Mr. President,
Your Royal Highness,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am deeply honoured by this degree and most grateful for your very kind words.
It is a great pleasure to address you all at this Commencement ceremony as a free citizen of a democratic country. For more than sixty years now, Luxembourg has enjoyed peace and freedom, as a result, on the one hand of brave American and allied leaders and soldiers who liberated this country from a terrible Nazi dictatorship, and, on the other hand of intelligent European leaders who felt that without a permanent cooperation built on common institutions history may repeat itself. Our freedom and security has also been guaranteed by our transatlantic relationship and alliance. More recently, the enlargement of the EU has further strengthened peace, stability and security in our part of the world. In a European Union there is no return ticket to a one party system or an armed conflict between its members as Europe has witnessed so many over the centuries.
And despite all these achievements, many fellow Europeans have doubts about the European Union. For some, the return to a mere intergovernmental cooperation is sufficient, for others, the EU does not provide for an answer to their economic and social problems. We have to take those doubts seriously, but the too numerous victims of the two world wars, and to some extent of the recent wars in former Yugoslavia, must remain constant reminders to all of us that without the European integration, without unique institutions that bind EU member states together under the rule of law to solve conflicts, peace and stability are not guaranteed.
We must stop talking about “Europe in crisis�?. We must again be positive, despite the difficulties. We must develop a new ambition for Europe. By creating a true European social model, Europe must give an answer to those who have become the victims of globalization and economic changes. Europe must become a leading actor in world politics, on global security issues, on economic issues, on development and immigration challenges, on environmental topics. Europe must again be in the driving seat as a continent that has so much to offer, in close partnership with those who share its values. Citizens must again be proud to be Europeans.
But the fundamental rights and the civil liberties we enjoy can only be fully exercised in a safe environment. It is the first task of the State to ensure and to guarantee the safety and freedom of its citizens. In addition, with the world moving closer together and security threats becoming increasingly global, international organisations play a more important part in an overall security strategy. I am thinking in particular here of the European Union and of NATO.
The contribution of the European Union to internal and external security is of vital added value to the national tasks of the different European countries.
With the Treaty of Rome of 1957, the Governments of six countries expressed their determination “to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe�?. Today, this ambition is shared by an entire continent.
The main goal was to open borders within the European Economic Community. To remove obstacles for trade. To ensure the free movement of goods, services, capital, workers and later citizens. Only much later, with the Treaty on European Union, did security and justice become important themes of the Union. Today they are central to it and to its future.
Eliminating barriers has for too long been confined to the economic field. We also have to tear down the barriers for our judges and our police forces. We have already achieved a lot. Much more needs to be done.
I cannot and will not accept that criminals of all kinds can cross our internal borders without any difficulty, and that at the same time our police forces are hindered by these same national borders to catch them. I cannot accept that our prosecutors and judges are prevented by the same borders to bring criminals to justice. I am amazed to see how many barriers exist in civil and family law that make it very difficult for our citizens who move or live in more than one European country. And yet, I observe that there is a lot of resistance among many politicians in Europe, and I must add among the legal professions as well, when it comes to creating a true European area of justice, freedom and security. We will not achieve it if every Government considers its national system or its legal tradition as the best one which cannot be changed, or if Member States remain reluctant to granting cross-border powers to judges and policemen.
I. The objectives for justice and internal security
We need a new ambition for justice and security in Europe. Let me briefly set out where I believe we should go from now on til the year 2025.
First, judicial cooperation in criminal matters must become more European. I suggest that we should start drafting a European criminal code. A code which would be limited to serious crimes, that, by the way, frequently have transborder aspects. Such a code, limited to serious “federal�? or eurocrimes, is an ambitious answer to overcome some of the problems that we face today with the principle of mutual recognition that we adopted as the cornerstone of the judicial area in 1999 and according to which each country recognizes the crimes, procedures and powers of the judicial authorities of the other Member States of the Union.
The numerous problems that we encountered when we negotiated the European Arrest Warrant and, more recently, the European Evidence Warrant, show that mutual recognition cannot be applied in all circumstances. Those instruments, for a limited number of serious crimes, grant the power to a judge of one Member State to arrest persons in another Member State or seize documents there if the relevant facts qualify as a crime in the country of origin of the judge, independent of the qualification of those facts in another Member State.
Why does mutual recognition not work for all crimes and why do our citizens, and our legal professions, have difficulties in accepting this concept. Because they feel that their rights are not protected adequately if, for instance, they can be arrested for crimes which do not qualify as such in the country where they have committed them.
Moreover, the detailed provisions of our national laws and criminal codes differ. The interpretation of legal definitions is paramount to our judicial systems. Applying mutual recognition only works if differences in definitions in case-law, and in legal systems, are not too big and if it does not create incoherency in transborder procedures.
We should not give up mutual recognition, rather the contrary. We should apply it to judgments and procedures wherever possible, especially in civil law cases. But we must realize that if we want to make progress in creating a true European judicial area, if we really want to tear down the barriers and efficiently fight organized transborder crimes, we need for serious crimes a European criminal code.
A certain degree of harmonization of criminal law is a prerequisite for mutual recognition to work. Member States of the European Union share the same values; a criminal code is the expression of what a society does not permit. We should demonstrate that we have common views on serious crimes if we take our common values seriously. And we will make the lives of the criminals more difficult because they cannot escape justice by merely crossing borders.
Secondly, I also believe that we should do more to set up a European civil and family law.
Today, many family relations have cross-border aspects or effects. Europe must facilitate the lives of the citizens. Europe must become more present in our civil law. I call on my European colleagues to develop common rules regarding the cross-border effects and recognition of, for instance, marriages, partnerships and divorces.
Common definitions or rules regarding civil or family law should also be set up at a European level. I know that some countries argue that, according to the principle of subsidiarity, family law should remain the exclusive competence of national governments. But, in a Europe of shared values, it should be possible to coordinate family and civil law. It would make the lives of our citizens easier. Are French families really so different from Italian families and Dutch families so different from Luxembourg families that a European civil code would be unacceptable. I do not think so.
Our third ambition must be with regard to police cooperation.
We need a European thinking for our police forces. I am amazed to see that despite the fact that we have abolished borders for our citizens, our police officers stop at often physically non-existing borders. Police data on criminals are not directly made available to police forces of other EU countries. This benefits criminals. We must start a new thinking here.
Police forces are organised on a strictly national level. They obey to their national rules and operate within the borders of the State. Occasionally, with more or less complicated administrative procedures to follow, they cooperate on a transborder level. Special agreements were necessary for Belgian police forces to assist their Luxembourg colleagues during the Luxembourg EU presidency, or for the Luxembourg police to give support to the German police during the current football world championship.
Law enforcement, especially when it comes to organized crime, has long ceased to be efficient if we limit it to the boundaries of the European nation-state. The opening of borders has to go hand in hand with closer cooperation between law enforcement agencies. This was well understood and applied with the Schengen convention. Its main objective, i.e. to eliminate checks at internal borders, was accompanied by a series of compensation measures. The most prominent of these is the Schengen Information System, a common database of police relevant information at the service of the national police forces of the common Schengen area.
This logic which was inherent to the Schengen process is still valid today. We have to work relentlessly to achieve better cooperation and better information exchange. Is it for instance acceptable that databases of convicted sexual criminals are organized solely on a national level? No, it is not. Is it efficient that in each of our countries there are thousands of DNA and fingerprints from crime scenes which cannot be identified because there is no EU-wide system by which they could be matched with the traces and prints held by other countries?
We have to move to a second, more integrated, level of European police cooperation. Occasional sharing of information is not sufficient. It is difficult to accept that we make so little progress at EU level with the implementation of the “principle of availability�?, under which data available to the police forces of one country should also benefit to those of other countries. Our databases must be interconnected and in some circumstances common databases are necessary.
Some object to this with arguments of data protection. I do not share such arguments. Data protection allows these tools to exist at national level. Why should they not work at a broader European level? It cannot be a question of size. Otherwise different types of databases should be permissible in Luxembourg than in Germany. What we need are European data protection rules which regulate the access and the purpose of shared information.
New European models of police cooperation are also necessary. I hope that the recent Benelux Police cooperation treaty will also serve to inspire the work within the European Union. The Benelux countries, building on their long tradition of close regional cooperation, have agreed provisions for cross border police intervention which are at the forefront of cross border police cooperation in the EU. On hot pursuit, the territorial limit has been waived. Crossborder police intervention on own initiative has been introduced, allowing the police to intervene across the border in case of emergency to secure public order. A solidarity mechanism has been established, enabling one country to request operational assistance in the form of manpower and material from the two other partners. These foreign policemen will operate on the territory of the host country under the operational command of the host.
Investigative cooperation has to reach a new level. A first step was reached with the setting up of joint investigation teams. It must be our ambition in the long run to create a truly European criminal police, i.e. a common investigative structure pooling resources from the existing law enforcement agencies and who would be in charge to exclusively fight European organized crime in the framework of Europol. The scope of action ratione materiae of such European investigative police, set up as a new branch of Europol, should be identical to the scope of the European criminal code, provided the crimes are of a cross-border nature.
Fourth, we need to rethink the issues relating to external border control.
Within the Schengen area there are no more border checks. Border checks have been transferred to the external borders of the Schengen area. These external Union borders are thus our common borders. The responsibility for controlling them should be common and not only the burden of those countries which are on the outskirts of the Union. The border of Luxembourg is as much on the southern coast of Spain or the eastern forest of Poland as it is at Luxembourg-Findel airport. The response to the challenges and the burden faced by border control must be a European border guard. This would also strengthen the trust that our citizens must have in serious controls of goods and persons entering our common European territory. An important role must also be played in this context by the new European External Border Agency.
Fifth, cooperation should not stop at our borders. We Europeans need strong cooperation with our direct neighbours and with a number of other partners. We need a European partnership for security with the neighbours of the EU. We must first and foremost strengthen the partnership and develop a security agenda on organized crime and illegal immigration with our European neighbours, who share our security concerns. I am in particular thinking of Russia, the countries of the Western Balkans and of the Ukraine. We also need to further develop the dialogue with Africa on immigration issues. There is no security at home if we do limit the security action plan to the current EU.
In this context, it also becomes absolutely necessary to adopt a truly European immigration policy. What we have done so far, i.e., to adopt minimum rules on asylum and immigration is not sufficient. National solutions are inadequate. On asylum, I am calling for a procedure and criteria that would be identical in all Member States. To avoid divergent decisions, the procedure should be directed by a European Refugee Office, rather than by national authorities.
Finally, we need a European external security policy made up of rule of law, of defense, police elements and better see its interrelation with domestic security issues. Europe’s contribution to peace, stability and security in the Balkans has been remarkable. We can be proud of the achievements and must be grateful to our soldiers and police forces in that part of Europe. They work for the stability of those countries and the security in our streets. External and internal security are but two sides of the same coin.
II. The new ideas to achieve more ambitious goals on justice and security issues
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Can the ambitions I have just set out be turned into action in the European Union? I think they can.
It is part of the dynamics of European integration that at times of major difficulties, new areas of cooperation have been developed and existing ones strengthened. The history of the EU is not a quiet and linear one. It is made up of crises, of doubts, of rediscovered ambitions and of successes.
Justice and security, internal and external, must be the next area of progress and success. The formal guarantee of civil rights, the role of the rule of law, the protection of collective and individual security are a substantial part of our model of society. And, if we can trust opinion polls, it is something our citizens want Europe to get more active in.
I believe that we can achieve the ambitions set out in the current Union of 25. The constitutional treaty provides for the legal framework we need to go ahead. I would have liked to go further, but the treaty is a compromise. Nevertheless, it is a sound basis for progress. With the suppression of the pillar structure, with the introduction of qualified majority voting and codecision, with a new legal basis for Europol, with the setting up of the Committee for internal security, the constitutional treaty sets the basis for progress on justice, security and defence issues.
We know that the constitutional treaty will not enter into effect later this year as initially envisaged, as nine Member States have not yet approved it. I believe that we should not spend too much time in debating about the title of the treaty and the scope of it, although I regret that so many details were included in the constitutional treaty which makes it difficult to read and explain. I believe that a short treaty with some fundamental rights and common objectives would have been, and might well become, the best option to move forward, leaving it to other treaties to deal with procedures and the like.
Except for mainly lawyers, people are not fascinated by treaties. A too long debate on the constitutional treaty gives the impression that Europe does not know what it really wants. We can do a lot under the existing treaties if we want to do so, if we have the courage and the energy to develop specific projects that show to our citizens that Europe moves and that it has a real added value for them. Let us take dramatic steps in the area of justice, security and defense, and the majority of our citizens, I am sure, will support us. I hope that the Finnish and German presidencies of the European Union do not hesitate to take steps to move ahead, to put our policies in a broader perspective.
On the one hand, we need specific and visible European projects, and I mentioned some of them for instance on police and border control. On the other hand, we need a clear view of where we want to go in the next twenty years, independent of whether the constitutional treaty enters into effect in the near future.
I therefore would like to make a few suggestions in the area of justice and internal security.
The European Council should designate one or more political leaders who should have to task to present the objectives for justice and home affairs in the year 2025 and a strategy to achieve it. The document should not reflect the views of the authors, but be the result of consultations with and in the Member States of the Union. In other words, what does the majority of members really want to achieve in 2025. I often have the impression that we loose a lot of time discussing details of decisions prepared by the Commission without having a clear view of where we want to go in the long term.
Secondly, we should seriously discuss whether it would not be helpful if the justice and home affairs council would elect among its members a permanent president of, say, a period of two or three years, in order to achieve greater continuity and better visibility both in the Union and in the discussions with third countries. This can be achieved without necessarily changing the general principle of the rotating presidency of the council.
On the point of procedures, unanimity prevents us from achieving progress. The Treaty on European Union, currently in force, in its article 42 provides for a so-called passerelle clause with permits to move to another voting system for police cooperation and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. If we really want to make progress, we should use this possibility and I would support such a step. I welcome in this regard the proposals made this week by President Barroso and Vice-President Frattini of the European Commission.
The same goes for Europol. Europol is a major tool within the Union’s security architecture. The current treaty allows for the possibility to move to a Union decision instead of the current Europol Convention. We should seize the opportunity offered by the treaty and give Europol a more efficient and flexible legal basis, which would allow us to change much more quickly than today its powers and working methods.
Beyond procedures, it is about having a common ambition. We should always try to do projects with all Member States. But if we realize after some discussions that some countries want to go faster than others, we should allow them to go ahead, allowing others to join later. The same is true if some countries want to test certain types of cooperation. In a Europe of six or nine Member States, this could have destroyed the common ambition; in a Europe of 25 to 30 Member States, this is absolutely necessary to move ahead on specific projects, provided the final goal and ambition is shared by all Member States.
Pilot projects, such as “Schengen�?, bring the Union forward as a whole. Within the Benelux Economic Union, we decided in the early 1960s to transfer the controls of persons to the outer borders of the Benelux, this was later in the 1980s a model for the Schengen countries, and today the entire system is fully integrated into the EU. What was started by three countries will soon benefit to 400 million citizens within the enlarged Schengen area.
We hope that the same will be the case for the Prüm Treaty on police and judicial cooperation entered into in 2005 by seven Member States. Seeing the difficulties of going ahead at 25 on such crucial issues as information exchange between police forces, seven countries decided to cooperate more closely on a regional basis. The aim is to test within a small group, innovative and ambitious solutions with the mid-term objective of integrating those results to the EU. The aim is “to play a pioneering role in establishing the highest possible standard of cooperation�?. The Prüm Treaty is not a closed club, it is an open laboratory. The Treaty itself foresees the possibility for all EU Member States to join and a special clause obliges the parties to the Treaty to take an initiative, three years after its entry into force, “with the aim of incorporating the provisions of this Convention into the legal framework of the European Union�?.
I could also mention the pilot project of several countries, initiated by France and Germany, regarding the interconnexion of the various criminal records (casier judiciaire) which my country will join soon.
These examples demonstrate that pilot projects and closer regional cooperation can be effective in nourishing progress in the EU itself. This could also prove true for “enhanced cooperation�?, a mechanism foreseen by the current treaties. My view is that we should have a closer look at the possibilities offered by enhanced cooperation in those areas where we can see a persistent deadlock in the Council of the EU because of unanimity.
For all types of deepened cooperation among only some of the 25 Member States, there is one condition nevertheless which must be fulfilled in order to guarantee success: Closer cooperation can never be based on the size of the participants; it must be based on a shared ambition and on common objectives. Moreover, any frontrunner group must be open to all those with the same level of ambition, unless it is a mere regional cooperation dealing with specific issues of a certain geographical location.
Peace, stability and security can only be preserved and strengthened in Europe if the Member States, independent of their size, work together towards a same goal, in mutual respect and solidarity.
This is true for the entire European continent. We need to end the enlargement debate. This also requires us to clarify the relations with our neighbours. Arguing for another decade about the Union’s final borders creates uncertainty and distracts us from pursuing our main objectives. We have to draw the final limits of the Union.
The talk about giving a “European perspective�? to some countries is misleading. The countries we are talking about are European by geography and culture.
In my view, the political limit of the EU should be in line with the geographic limit of Europe. To those countries that geographically are not on the European continent, as well as to those who do not want to become members of the EU we must offer a close partnership. There must be other models than full membership. Have we not developed interesting and successful models of partnership with Switzerland or Norway for instance? Common membership in NATO and the Council of Europe can also be part of such a partnership.
Within the next twenty years, the countries of the Western-Balkans, the Ukraine and a democratic Belarus must be allowed to join the European Union. I know that this is not a popular proposal and will further complicate the functioning of the Union. But I believe that by accepting those countries in our institutions, by asking them to accept and apply our rules, i.e. EU law, we will strengthen the stability, the democracy, the judiciary, the fight against corruption and organized crime in those countries. The choice is between a newly divided Europe that tolerates chaos on its outskirts or a united Europe that guarantees peace, security and the rule of law.
A Europe of 25 Member States is certainly different from a Europe of six Member States, but a Europe of a little bit more than 30 Member States will not be that different from today’s European Union. Today’s and tomorrow’s Union requires however new working methods and decision making mechanisms.
For both those countries on track of becoming full members and those that will be linked to the EU in special and close ties, it is important that we already now move to deepen our relations in the security field. It is our duty to commit our efforts and our resources to build up and improve justice and internal security structures in those countries. The respect of fundamental rights, of individual freedoms, the confidence in an independent justice and in guaranteed security will solidify the foundation of the state, the confidence in its structures and the cohesion of the society.
Our security and general political dialogue should also always include our European friends in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
A European security agenda however would be incomplete if we would limit it to Europe and to its neighbours. We need to further consolidate our security cooperation with Russia and build on the achievements of our EU Presidency in 2005.
Of course there are regional aspects, but security today is largely a global issue. On many issues, international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking, organized crime to name only a few, we need a global perspective and strategy.
In this regard, Europe’s closest partner must remain the United States of America.
More than any other regions of the world, our two continents share the same historic roots, the same constitutional rights and the same values of freedom and democracy. Our freedom and security is based on a strong partnership between the US and Europe. That was true more than sixty years ago. It is true today, because, despite occasional differences, we have more in common than most other regions in the world. If the US and the EU are divided, others who do not share our vision of freedom, democracy and human rights become much stronger and our security is no longer ensured. I am most pleased that over the past few years, in particular during the Luxembourg presidency of the EU, Europe managed to strengthen the partnership on defense, justice and homeland security issues with the United States, especially in the important fight against international terrorism and organized crime. I also consider NATO an important political and military instrument to discuss global security issues between North America and Europe. Europe, as a Union, should play an important role to strengthen the European arm of NATO and support the essential partnership of NATO with countries such as Russia.
Distinguished guests,
I am extremely grateful and honoured by the honorary degree that you have conferred upon me today. It is certainly a recognition for many hours of hard work, but above all it is a strong encouragement to continue to actively contribute to build a world in which people can live in peace, freedom and security. What I have outlined today is a program for the next twenty years, it cannot be achieved in a short period of time. It will not be supported by all, but I hope that it will lead to a real debate about the future of justice and security and about the future of Europe.
As a minister, my function is to serve the common interest, to serve the people of my country. They have a right to live in freedom and security. Europe has a significant role to play in security issues, which are the cornerstones of freedom and economic development. But we must be ambitious. We must be ready to accept changes. We must be optimistic again and be proud citizens of our countries and of Europe. We must be trustworthy and respected friends and partners of those who share our values of solidarity, human rights, freedom and democracy.
Thank you very much.