Stockholm Programma: op weg naar een veiligere en transparantere EU (en)

If you are detained by police in another EU country, what rights do you have? How can police cooperation be improved to stop the flow of illicit drugs across Europe’s borders? And how can the EU ensure that asylum seekers receive the same treatment in all Member States? It is now time to chart a course for future cooperation on EU issues such as this, under what is known as the Stockholm Programme. This week, EU ministers for justice and home affairs meet in Stockholm.

Every five years, the EU draws up a strategy, or road map, for dealing with matters in the justice and home affairs sector. It provides a framework for EU work on police, border and customs cooperation, rescue services, justice issues, asylum, migration and visa policy for the period 2010–2014. The first road map, the Tammerfors Programme, was negotiated during Finland’s Presidency of the EU in 1999. It was succeeded by the Hague Programme when the Netherlands led the work of the Union in 2004, and the foundations are now being laid for the Stockholm Programme, due for adoption during the Swedish Presidency.

“The Presidency will be striving for a more secure and more open Europe,” says Magnus Graner, State Secretary to Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask. “An important step in this direction is getting the EU to unite on a Stockholm Programme that is ambitious, forward-looking, well-balanced and concrete.”

“Such a programme is an expression of political will – it points the way, saying ‘This is where we want to go’,” adds Minna Ljunggren, State Secretary to Minister for Migration Tobias Billström. “It may not say exactly how, but it shows what we want to achieve.”

Focus on migration

The EU has come some way down the road towards a common asylum policy, but many issues remain to be resolved. Despite a common set of rules, refugee reception and asylum practices differ widely between countries. In future, therefore, legal rights will need to be strengthened further and solidarity will need to increase. The Swedish Presidency will press for measures that reduce the disparities between the approach to asylum matters in the Member States, including reception conditions, the processing of asylum cases, and return migration policies. Responsibility for asylum applications also needs to be shared more evenly in the future.

Migration issues are also high on the list of priorities. The EU must attract more immigrant labour so that bottlenecks in the labour market can be eliminated and more people can find work.

Another part of the Stockholm Programme concerns the fight against cross-border crime – an area in which European cooperation has a decisive role. An important task this autumn will be to strike a balance between, on the one hand, joint action to improve security, and, on the other, the rights of the individual. The EU’s tools for tackling crimes such as terrorism and human trafficking must be sharpened further, while the rights of the individual must be safeguarded more firmly than at present. One issue on which the Union has failed to arrive at common rules is that of legal rights in connection with criminal proceedings. A suspect from another country, for instance, should be given the right both to an interpreter and to the translation of documents. This is currently being discussed in preparation for the autumn negotiations.

“It’s a way of getting the EU to turn its gaze from police cooperation and criminal law and to take more responsibility for Europe’s citizens,” says Signe Öhman of the Ministry of Justice. “In comparison with previous programmes, the Stockholm Programme will focus more on issues that concern the individual.”

Protection for victims of crime

The Swedish Presidency will also seek to introduce a clearer crime-victim perspective into the Stockholm Programme. The aim is to establish what rights an EU citizen exposed to a crime has and to ensure that victims are given support – whichever EU member state the crime takes place in. Establishing greater legal predictability is also something that would make life easier for many citizens. It must become easier to move around the EU zone and possess property in other countries without encountering unexpected legal obstacles.

There is little time in which to complete negotiations on the Stockholm Programme. On 10 June, the European Commission issued two communications outlining what progress has been made in the present programme and what issues the European Union should focus on in the future. Subsequently, in mid-July, the EU ministers for justice and home affairs held an informal meeting in the Swedish capital to discuss what the Stockholm Programme should contain. Intensive negotiations can be expected in the autumn and the aim is for the EU heads of state and government to adopt the strategy at their December summit.      

“The Stockholm Programme will, I hope, be relevant not just for the next five years but for fifteen or twenty years to come,” says State Secretary Minna Ljunggren. “That would be great for Sweden.”