President of the European Parliament visits Europol

The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, was welcomed to Europol on Monday, 2 December, by Europol’s Director, Rob Wainwright and Mr. John O’Mahoney, Chairman of Europol Management Board.

Mr. Schulz has followed Europol’s progress since he was the shadow rapporteur for the discussions on the original Europol Convention. He is very enthusiastic about Europol’s work and, during their meeting, a number of key areas were discussed. This included the Draft Europol Regulation, currently being discussed in the European Parliament; the crucial role that Europol plays in preventing abuse of the freedom of movement in Europe by criminals; future funding; strategic priorities including cybercrime and illegal immigration; data retention; data protection; and the European Parliament’s oversight of Europol. In addition, they discussed the importance of Europol’s cooperation with the private sector and international partners, such as the United States, to support Member States’ operations against online child sex abuse.

After the meeting, Mr. Schulz was introduced to the new tools and facilities in the EC3 forensic lab. He was also shown cases of product counterfeiting which highlighted the role that Europol plays in protecting the health and safety of EU citizens and protecting European businesses’ intellectual property. Finally, Mr. Wainwright and Mr. Schulz spoke about the need for legislators to strike the right balance between security and privacy in the information era.

Mr. Schulz concluded by saying how the European Parliament should ensure that Europol is given the right legal framework to operate efficiently and calls for greater political support for Europol for both the work it does and the way it does it. Mr. Schulz considers Europol one of the success stories of the European Union and later Tweeted how: “@Europol_EU is doing an invaluable job protecting #European citizens. Needs more political support!”