Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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We have spent much time on this with European Ministers, as well as my officials at working group level. It is all very straightforward. The provisions regarding CEPOL, the European Police College, can be separately and discreetly removed from this and it does not create any subsequent problems with the other provisions.

The majority of member states were opposed to the proposed merger of the two agencies. Their concern was that training would suffer if CEPOL were merged into what is a criminal intelligence agency. In other words, the criminal intelligence aspect of it would be prioritised while the training side would be downgraded. Personally, I do not believe that would have happened. However, this is the European Union. We had detailed engagement with member states on this issue at the June Council meeting that I chaired. There were a small number of member states which supported the merger. If I had not been in the chair, I would have equally been supportive of it.

The Commission argued that a merger into a single agency, headquartered in The Hague, would create synergy and efficiencies. The overriding concern of member states was that Europol has a particular and important function. It is not involved in training which CEPOL does. It was believed that in merging the two, priority would be given to the research and data exchange side. There was a suggestion to co-locate the two agencies in the one building. I believe they will operate separately, however.