On 21 March 2025, 14:00 to 15:00 CET, LSTS visiting scholar Francesca Tassinari (postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Public Law, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)) will present her work-in-progress, entitled “Post-Brexit Law Enforcement Cooperation: Boosting Europol’s Competences?”.
Abstract:
The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU) turned this state into a third country for all intents and purposes, also from the point of view of international cooperation based on the transborder flow of data between police authorities. Accompanied by great controversy, the United Kingdom (UK) was disconnected from the Schengen Information System (SIS II) and the Europol Information System (EIS), the EU's police cooperation agency. In this LSTS Talk, my assumption is that Europol's mandate has been strengthened following the UK's withdrawal from the EU to compensate for the UK's non-access to EU’s police data. It leverages on two reforms: Europol's authority to transfer information on SIS alerts on an exceptional basis, with the consent of the member state holding the alert, and so-called information alerts, allowing a member state, under instructions from Europol, to enter third countries’ information into the SIS so that this is available directly and in real time. Such a solution will be criticised in light of Article 572 of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), which commits the Parties to consider new processes and technical developments to ensure data exchanges between Europol and the UK’s authorities ‘as quickly as possible […] while taking account of the fact that the United Kingdom is not a Member State’.
Prof. Helena Farrand Carrapico (Northumbria University) will join us as the discussant.
This event will be in a hybrid format (both on-campus and online). Interested participants wishing to take part can register by sending an email to Pablo.Rodrigo.Trigo.Kramcsak@vub.be.