Brussels, 16 March 2022
On Wednesday, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) voted to approve the first result of interinstitutional negotiations on Europol reform.
MEPs sitting on the Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs have endorsed an agreement reached between the Parliament and Council in February on the first part of Europol mandate reform. The agreement was confirmed with 49 votes in favour, 13 against, and 5 abstaining.
The updated mandate of the European police agency aims to strengthen its ability to support investigations carried out by member states. After the reform, Europol will be able to pursue research and innovation projects, process large datasets, and help national authorities screen foreign direct investment in security-related cases. When dealing with terrorist content or child sexual abuse material, Europol will be able to receive data from private companies, for example communication providers. In such cases, Europol will also be able to process personal data, which will have to be deleted after a certain time.
Read more about the agreement here.
Next steps
Before adoption, a European Parliament plenary will have to give its final approval to the proposal. It is scheduled for a vote during the May 2022 part-session.
In parallel, EP and Council negotiators are discussing the second part of Europol reform, focussed on the agency’s ability to propose alerts to be added to the Schengen Information System (SIS).