Insight
Good cop, bad cop: How to keep Britain inside Europol by Camino Mortera-Martinez 16 May 2017
A post-Brexit deal on Europol should be relatively easy to negotiate. The UK could retain a special status, but the British government will need to make some concessions. In her Article 50 letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, Theresa May warned that if the UK and the EU failed to reach an agreement, their security co-operation would be “weakened”. Many, in Brussels and elsewhere, interpreted her words as a thinly-veiled threat. Although May later denied claims that she was using security as a bargaining chip, the UK’s insistence that it has a ‘security surplus’ with the EU does not bode well. Security will be easier to negotiate than trade. Both parties have an interest in reaching a quick agreement on matters related to crime and counter-terrorism. But sometimes political will is not enough: Britain and the EU will need to find ways to cut through highly complex, legalistic jungles such as the EU’s justice and home affairs (JHA) policies. There are three areas of particular importance for European co-operation against crime and terrorism. In decreasing order of difficulty in the Brexit negotiations, these are the European Arrest Warrant (EAW); access to databases such as the Schengen Information System (SIS); and police and judicial co-operation through the EU agencies Europol and Eurojust. In none of these areas is Britain likely to retain the same status it enjoys now. But in most of them, the EU and the UK will be able to reach an agreement that keeps the UK as closely associated as possible. This will require a bit of creativity. This insight is the first in a three-part series on plugging the British into JHA. It looks at how to keep Britain inside Europol, and why this may be easier than retaining access to Schengen databases or remaining a member of the European Arrest Warrant. Europol is the EU’s police agency. It employs over a thousand people and supports 40,000 international investigations every year. Over the past decade, the UK has shaped Europol in a way no other CER INSIGHT: Good cop, bad cop: How to keep Britain inside Europol 16 May 2017
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