EUROPOL AND INTERPOL BOSSES AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE BKA
This year's autumn conference of the BKA (Germany's Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation) was held under the slogan "crime fighting to bring Europe together". Among the speakers at the conference were BKA chief Ulrich Kersten, Europol director Jürgen Storbeck, and the Secretary General of Interpol, Raymond Kendall.
The common message of the police chiefs was that the international exchange of police information and intelligence needs to be improved if international crime is to be effectively combatted. In calling for improved information exchange, BKA chief Kersten particularly referred to the "rapid growth of Internet crime".
Europol director Storbeck said information was the "raw material of police work". Europol is currently working on setting up its information system. To be installed in 2001, it is expected to begin operating in 2002. Storbeck stressed that cooperation between Europol and individual Member States need to be improved. As an example, he named substantial problems with the production of the annual report on organised crime. The country reports exhibited significant qualitative differences, partly contradicted themselves, and did not complement one another, Storbeck said.
According to Storbeck, more commitment by the Member States to actively contribute to the work of Europol is necessary. At present, Europol cannot itself require information from a Member State, but must request it and hope for an answer that might not come. The conclusions of the Tampere Summit seem to take into account the concerns of the Europol director, by advocating a more binding obligation for Member States to provide the agency with "operational data" and by opening the way for a leading role for Europol in running joint cross-border investigations and surveillance measures (see article in this issue on Tampere Summit).
Interpol's Secretary General, Raymond Kendall, also called for better information exchange between states and suggested that surveillance operations in the context of cross border investigations should be taken over by "specialists". More specifically, Kendall questioned "the sense of introducing police officers to surveillance work if intelligence analysts who work in this area are qualified and more successful at it".
Source: Telepolis, www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/, article by C. Schulzki-Haddouti, 26.11.99.