Decentralisation Trends in European Union Police Cooperation: Implications for Efficacy and Accountability

Abstract

In the past decade police cooperation in the European Union (EU) has been based on state-centrism cultivating the establishment of national coordination mechanisms within the states. Recent developments, however, point to an increasing importance of decentralised practices and arrangements for European police cooperation. In addition, developments are visible that predict increasing interlinking between supra- and sub-state police cooperation efforts. What implications do these developments entail for practices of police cooperation, for the centralised national coordination mechanisms and for Third Pillar policy-making on police cooperation? This paper aims at exploring these developments and examining possible implications with particular attention for the efficacy and accountability of future police cooperation in the EU. To that end the paper consists of four sections. The first section presents some theoretical notions to assist the discussion of relevant issues in centralised and decentralised police cooperation. Section two thereafter looks at developments in police cooperation in Europe that contributed to the present day dominance of police cooperation via centralised coordination mechanisms at national level. Next to a broader historical development of police cooperation in Europe also a number of EU policy instruments aimed at establishing coordination on national level in the Member States will be pointed out. Against that background section three empirically regards four independent developments, both inside as outside the EU institutional sphere. In short these are the changes in the legal position of the Europol National Units, the new possibilities of the Interpol communication system, the emergence of joint commissariats in European border regions and the advancement of the principle of availability in European police cooperation. Thereafter section four of this paper reviews possible implications of these developments focussing on practices of police information exchange, the role of centralised national institutions and the characteristics of Third Pillar policy. Particular attention is in this respect given to the impact on efficacy and accountability of police cooperation that could result from these changes.