conference logo

Playlist "SIGINT09"

Turn off the Stockholm Programme!

Gipfelsoli

Following Tampere 1999 and Hague 2004, the EU plans to decide the next five-year plan on "Justice and Home Affairs" (JHA) this year.

After the implementation of data retention and new databases, the creation of "Frontex" and the "European Security Research Programme", the "harmonization" of terrorism laws and more surveillance of the internet, next severe changes are foreseen to bet set in the new guideline.

Under swedish EU presidency in the second half of 2009, probably in November or December, the ministers of interior and justice will meet to agree the new "Stockholm Programme".

A self-announced "Future Group" of some of the ministers, initiated under german EU presidency 2007, already published the wishlist "European Home Affairs in an open world":

An EU population register, ‘remote’ forensic searches of computer hard drives, internet surveillance systems, more implementation of satellites and ‘drone’ planes for surveillance, automated exit-entry systems operated by machines, autonomous targeting systems, risk assessment and profiling systems, e-borders, passenger profiling systems, an EU ‘entry-exit’ system, joint EU expulsion flights, dedicated EU expulsion planes, EU-funded detention centres and refugee camps in third countries (even "overseas"), expansion of the para-military European Gendarmerie Force, deployment of EU Battle Groups, crisis management operations in Africa, permanent EU military patrols in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, more power for EU agencies, interlinking of national police systems, an EU criminal record, a permanent EU Standing Committee on internal security (COSI) dealing with operational matters, more partnerships with the security industry.

By 2014, the ministers wish to establish a "transatlantic security partnership" between the EU and USA, that can be seen as a kind of a "domestically NATO". NATO strategists on the other hand approach to internal politics by claiming in the paper "Towards a grand strategy in an uncertain world" that military could only supply "strong defence" if there is a "strong homeland security".

Simulating a "participation of the citizens", the EU organized a "survey" asking online opinions towards the changes foreseen in the "Stockholm Programme". Participants could only choose between provided answers, that didn't allow any serious critique towards the plans. Only 700 user were counted.

For more information see the studies of
Statewatch: http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/the-shape-of-things-to-come.pdf
Gipfelsoli: http://www.gipfelsoli.org/Gipfelsoli/Gipfelsoli_english/5575.html