Chair of the Committee on Internal Security and Public Order Tsvetan Tsvetanov said that today’s meeting was a venue for over 130 parliamentarians from 27 national legislative institutions. He recalled that Article 88 of the TFEU provided an unprecedented form of supervision over Europol’s activity and regulated this political supervision as a shared responsibility between the EP and the national parliaments. The founding meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group was held during the Estonian Presidency, but regrettably, we could not then manage to come to an agreement on the rules of procedure and postponed this decision for today’s meeting because of reservations of nine national parliaments, added Tsvetan Tsvetanov. He thanked the participants for supporting in principle the text agreed upon after the bilateral consultations.

The remaining highlights in today’s agenda concern the cooperation with the Western Balkans because we need to make sure that these countries have a future and maintain their Euro-Atlantic orientation, said the Chair of the Internal Security Committee. Among the challenges to be discussed at the event he mentioned cybersecurity, and the fight against terrorism and organised crime, which relate to guaranteeing security online and neutralising and curbing online illegal content.

Our aim at today’s meeting is to adopt Europol’s working rules, and we need to do our best to achieve this goal so that Europol will be the powerful institution we all want it to be, said Claude Moraes, Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee at the European Parliament. He thanked the representatives of the national parliaments and the MEPs for their close cooperation in holding the meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group on Europol. Representatives of the legislative institutions of the 27 EU member states and nine MEPs are participants in the meeting, emphasised Claude Moraes.