A new “Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group” for Europol (JPSG) will meet for the first time in autumn 2017. Its creation was agreed by the EU Speakers Conference (the Presidents of the EU’s national parliaments and the European Parliament) in April 2017. With this decision, the idea of a body to ensure parliamentary scrutiny of the European Police Office (Europol) finally manifests itself in the JPSG. In the emerging Security Union that the EU seeks to create, also in reaction to recent terror attacks, the responsible actors at the EU level must be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. According to Article 51 of the new Europol Regulation No. 2016/794, the JPSG will play an essential role to “politically monitor Europol’s activities in fulfilling its mission, including as regards the impact of those activities on the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons.”

This Policy Paper by Valentin Kreilinger, research fellow at the Jacques Delors Institute – Berlin:

• examines the political difficulties to move forward with enhancing the parliamentary scrutiny over Europol;
• evaluates the agreement that was found in April 2017;
• and presents concrete proposals in order to make the JPSG work efficiently.