This is taken from my archives,dated 3/3/12
The Leveller
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, this is a long and difficult one. Concentrate hard!
This important item, circulated in Statewatch News, was about the strategic direction of Britain's police from Europe. This is about Europe identifying which "terrorist" groups Europe will target for police action.
6. EU: Council of the European Union: Standing Committee on operational cooperation on internal security (COSI): EU Policy Cycle process review: From OCTA to OAP:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2012/feb/eu-council-cosi-eu-policy-cycle-octa-oap-5751-rev1-12.pdf and Strategic goals related to the EU's priorities for the fight against organised crime between 2011 and 2013:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2012/feb/eu-council-cosi-strategic-goals-15850-11.pdf However, these documents are almost completely unintelligible because of the large number of acronyms used throughout the documents - this indicates someone has worked very hard to bury something important, in a mountain of gobbledygook..You may never be able to make sense of it, unless you read the following items first
You may have read about Mark Kennedy, the undercover policeman who worked cross-border, infiltrating political groups throughout Europe. His handlers in Britain did not know what he was doing. He was sent abroad but UK police authorising officers were never told. This is mentioned in the HMIC report into Mark Kennedy, which had no locus to investigate his activities abroad, and mentioned this only in connection with problems in accountability while he was operating in the UK.
http://www.hmic.gov.uk/publication/review-of-national-police-units-which-provide-intelligence-on-criminality-associated-with-protest-20120202 "Mark Kennedy was used in... 11 countries on more than 40 occasions" and has also revealed serious failings in supervision: - "NPOIU ... were not (on occasions) informing the authorising officer that he was going overseas, nor providing them with relevant information about what happened while he was overseas."
During the same period, foreign undercover officers came to the UK, to infiltrate British political groups. We know that 5 German undercover agents were in Scotland, during the G8 conference at Gleneagles in 2005.
The government has not included cross-border undercover operations within any of the inquiries into the Kennedy scandal.
Undercover operations (infiltration) take place under a plan agreed at a European level. It appears that the activities take place in relation to a strategic plan agreed at a European level, at the European Council, based upon recommendations from Europol and COSI.
A 2004 policy document "Strengthening the EU operational police co-operation" explains the system: - "European police co-operation should be 'intelligence-led policing' ... requiring the political level to pro-actively set priorities". This is decided "on the basis of up-to-date and accurate threat analysis" which is set-out by the European Police Chiefs Task Force (PCTF), in cooperation with Europol. The PCTF was set up by the 1999 by the European Council and is equivalent to ACPO at the European level - indeed, Britain is represented by ACPO on the PCTF.
The report continues "following directions on how to operationalise these priorities, Europol should set out the intelligence requirements for the Member States." This means, these operations are generally directed from the highest levels in Europe.
The report explains how Britain played an influential role in Europe adopting this model..
The mechanism for European control of cross-border undercover operations, as explained in official documents.
We can actually see an example (below) where the European Presidency directed police actions against animal rights activists as a politically-led priority.
*** *** ***
This appeared to have developed from the Tampere and Hague programmes on Security, as explained in the following EU policy document.
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/nov/nov-sum-pctf.pdf COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Brussels, 27 October 2004
13075/1/04 REV 1
NOTE
from : Presidency
Subject : Strengthening the EU operational police co-operation
...
The 1999 Tampere conclusions of the European Council call in paragraph 44 for the establishment
of a "European Police Chiefs Operational Task Force to exchange, in co-operation with Europol,
experience, best practices and information on current trends in cross-border crime and contribute to
the planning of operative actions".
Since then, the Police Chiefs Task Force (PCTF) has been meeting once every Presidency and has
spent a large part of its meetings on the discussion of its tasks.
In its Declaration on combating Terrorism of 25 March 2004, the European Council called "on the
Task Force to review how its operational capacity can be reinforced and to focus on proactive
intelligence."1
Moreover, the Hague Programme refers to Article III-261 of the draft Treaty establishing a
Constitution for Europe which sets out the need to "ensure that operational co-operation on internal
security is promoted and strengthened within the Union".
... the need for more co-ordination of operative actions has been stated. It follows
notably from the Tampere conclusions and their proposal to set up the PCTF but has recently been
more developed in two different proposals on a methodology for European police co-operation: the
Comprehensive Operational Strategic Plan for Police (COSPOL) of the Netherlands delegation and
the European Criminal Intelligence Model (ECIM) of the UK delegation.
While the COSPOL and ECIM proposals may differ on the practical and procedural details, they are
based on the same premises
- European police co-operation should be "intelligence-led policing", providing for a link between
"assessment" and "action"2, requiring the political level to pro-actively set priorities
- the potential of available actors and instruments for European operational police co-operation
should be enhanced and made better use of.
Moreover, both models set out the following general requirements:
- at a political level, the priorities for operational co-operation should be decided, on the basis of
up-to-date and accurate threat analysis
- following directions on how to operationalise these priorities, Europol should set out the
intelligence requirements for the Member States (obviously in co-operation with HENU's)
- taking these into account, Member States should provide the necessary intelligence for Europol
to store and analyse, on the basis of which, Europol and the concerned Member States' law
enforcement agencies should co-ordinate and execute investigations
- the debriefing of these investigations should provide the necessary input for Europol to draw up
the analysis for the political level to set the priorities.
In this methodology, the "action" is left to the law enforcement agencies of the Member States, with
the assistance of Europol. The "assessment" belongs to the policy-making level.
It appears that although the individual operations may be arranged between member states, the activities take place in relation to a strategic plan agreed at a European level, at the European Council, based upon recommendations from Europol and COSI.
http://police-eu2010.be/mu-eu2010/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Harmony_FinalDraft.pdfHarmony
4.2 Step 2: Decision-making
01. Before the JHA Council can come up with conclusions, the
decision-making process needs to be prepared by COSI. ...
02. The threat assessment carried out by Europol should, beside the
analysis of information, contain conclusions. In this step, these
conclusions need to be converted into recommendations. This task
can be carried out by the COSI with Europol?s assistance. The full
threat assessment and its conclusions, produced by Europol, stay
at the level of the Law Enforcement services/community. A policy
advisory document comprising an executive summary, accompanied
by a proposal for priorities and recommendations, drafted by
Europol under the guidance of COSI, is forwarded for political consideration.
03. The JHA Council remains the responsible political body which
decides upon the priorities to be tackled, based on the policy
advisory document.
04. The Council Conclusions must determine priorities concerning
crime phenomena (including criminal groups and types of crime)
and organised crime groups. Priority setting has to be done on a
pan - European and regional level. The priorities on a pan-
European level can contain direct tasking. The conclusions for the
regional level should be more carefully articulated, ?invitations?,
directed towards the Member States. Tasking of EU agencies can
always be direct.
05. Priorities are set to tackle cross-border structural problems via a
more planned and long term approach. This doesn?t mean that
other areas of internal EU security are not of concern, however
these problems may be better tackled by a swift and reactive
approach.
4.3 Step 3: Implementing and monitoring
...
03 To implement and monitor the law enforcement related issues,
different actors can be involved according to the type of crime
phenomenon. If horizontal (at EU level) and/or vertical (between
EU bodies and the MS) interaction or cooperation is necessary,
an EU agency should be designated to take the lead. In most of
the situations, as far as the crime phenomenon falls within the
mandate of Europol, we recommend that Europol should assume
this responsibility. Driver-ship, especially in the framework of
tackling regional problems, can also be assumed by a MS.
04. To implement and monitor the operational activities within the
area of law enforcement, one can identify three main actors:
Europol; other EU agencies or bodies (FRONTEX, EUROJUST,
OLAF, CEPOL, CCWP, etc); and, the MS. These actors, tasked
through one or more multi-annual strategic plans, have to come
up with a detailed action plan explaining who is going to do what
and how, according to an agreed timeline.
Now, here is where this gets put into action.
Here is where the European Presidency asked Europol and the PCTF for a strategy to deal with Animal Rights Extremism.
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/07/st14/st14173.en07.pdf COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Brussels, 7 November 2007
14173/07
ENFOPOL 173
Subject : Outcome of proceedings of the Police Chiefs Task Force meeting on 9 October 2007
4. Animal Rights Extremists in Europe (ARE)
Europol gave a presentation on the illegal activities of Animal Rights Extremists, which vary
considerably from one Member State to another and do not represent the same threat everywhere in
the EU.
The Presidency asked Europol to gather information and present a threat assessment on this subject
at the next Strategic Meeting in order to enable the Police Chiefs to decide on the best manner to
deal to this phenomenon. (Emphasis added)
The UK delegation stressed the importance of this subject as the UK has been hit badly by this
complex phenomenon, which can have serious financial and economic implications. This could be
an opportunity for other Member States to pre-empt a problem that, due to its links to multi-national
companies, has international aspects and might therefore spread to other Member States.
Knowing that cross-border undercover operations take place in response to EU strategies, set by either the Presidency or the Council of Europe, it will now be possible to identify ask for relevant strategy documents, which led to the operations in which Mark Kennedy was employed.
PCTF strategy meetings (as above) take place once every Presidency (i.e. twice a year), we just have to ask for all of the proceedings for the relevant period of operations.
Here are some more details on recent policing strategies: -
http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/EU_Terrorism_Situation_and_Trend_Report_TE-SAT/Tesat2010.pdf p5-9, p17, p33 onwards
http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/EU_Terrorism_Situation_and_Trend_Report_TE-SAT/TESAT2009.pdf p9, p31 onwards
http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/EU_Terrorism_Situation_and_Trend_Report_TE-SAT/TESAT2008.pdf p9-10, 13, 15, p36 onwards
http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/EU_Terrorism_Situation_and_Trend_Report_TE-SAT/TESAT2007.pdf p6, 12, 15-16, p34 onwards
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/may/03europol.htm We could all comment on the disproportionate emphasis on groups that do not do a lot of harm
European Police College - CEPOL
This does not appear to be a "college", in any sense we would normally understand, but rather a system for organising high-level international meetings and policy conferences.
http://www.cepol.europa.eu/index.php?id=home Home: CEPOL - European Police College
04 March 2011
Euro-African Conference - Naples, Italy
The ideas and recommendations produced by the Euro-African Conference held in Naples, Italy, from 7 to 9...
25 February 2011
Serving the new EU Security Architecture
The 15th External Relations Working Group (ERWG) meeting took place in Warsaw, Poland, on 10-11 February 2011...
14 March 2011 - 18 March 2011
48/2011 TOPSPOC - Top Senior Police Officers: The Stockholm Programme (1)
Austria
07 March 2011 - 11 March 2011
27/2011 International Police Cooperation - Step 1
Spain
WikiLeaks on Europol
I don't like or trust WikiLeaks, but this cable is interesting
EUROPOL to become a federal EU police structure - Cable reference id: #03BRUSSELS2375
Best Regards
Nathan