Subsidiarity test of the Commission's proposal for a regulation on strengthened police cooperation regarding human smuggling and strengthening Europol's support to prevent and combat such crime

Ulrika Liljeberg (C)

Mr. Speaker! It feels a bit unexpected that I, from the Center Party, stand here in the Riksdag and believe that we should raise an issue to the EU level when other parties are hesitant, we who have always advocated for decentralization and that decisions should be made at a local and close level, preferably by the individual themselves, we who stand guard over people's freedom, privacy, and self-determination. I will return to why it is for these very reasons that we act as we do in this matter.

Today we are dealing with whether a proposal for a regulation concerning the shared competence, that is, the area of law enforcement, is in accordance with the subsidiarity principle. This means that we are to determine whether what is to be regulated can be solved more effectively nationally than in a unified EU where all 27 member states are bound to do more or less the same.

We shall also make a proportionality assessment, i.e., assess whether the proposed measures are of the right nature and have the right intensity to solve the problem.

Then we come to the issue that the trial concerns: trade and smuggling. Just this spontaneously feels like an issue that is best solved collectively rather than by 27 different countries doing different things.

Then we come to what is being smuggled and traded. It is not weapons, drugs or things we are talking about, but it is people who are being smuggled, often in a way that makes their vulnerable position grossly exploited. And then we have this with human trafficking primarily for sexual purposes and as labor, both of which are serious crimes where individuals are treated and exploited ruthlessly.

Human smuggling and, perhaps even more, human trafficking concerns the ultimate lack of and the ultimate absence of people's freedom, privacy, and self-determination. Precisely the values that I mentioned earlier are the reason why we often consider that the EU should not interfere, but in just this case, the EU was needed as a common force against this.

We consider that the regulation concerns an issue that cannot be solved individually. We must remember that we are not only commenting on the Swedish conditions but on how we view the solution to the issue in all member countries. This refers to countries that currently do not even belong to the Schengen Agreement, for example Bulgaria and Romania, which would be obligated to take measures in this matter with this regulation.

Mr. Speaker! I grant that the majority says this is an important issue, no doubt about it. I will not foreshadow anything else. What is it then that the majority is reacting to in the proposal? There is a requirement that the national police shall designate specific functions to be specialized within this area. In the official translation, it therefore says "designate", not "establish". I think this is perfectly reasonable because "designate" for me means to indicate which departments are responsible. We often talk about accountability, which we think is important.

Then one reacts to the fact that Europol is to propose that an operational working group be established, i.e., not decide, but propose. Instead, the majority says that the cooperation with Europol works well and that an expansion of the cooperation must be in proportion to the costs that will arise to accommodate the increased efforts. This is, however, not the picture that the EU has of human smuggling and human trafficking. It is increasing, and new methods of working are needed.

We in the Center Party make the same assessment as the commission in this matter, namely that this is an important step in the cross-border work against human trafficking and people smuggling, where not all countries have instances, functions, and resources for cooperation intended to combat and prosecute one of the most serious crimes: human trafficking.

I therefore move for the reservation to be approved.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Mikael Damsgaard (M)

Mr. Speaker! Human smuggling and human trafficking to and within the EU is extensive and a serious problem. To a large extent, this activity is carried out by smuggling networks that commit serious organized crime. Migrant smuggling, for example, lies behind hundreds of thousands of irregular, that is to say illegal, entries into the EU.

During 2023, approximately 330,000 irregular border crossings were detected at the EU's external borders, which is an increase of 17 percent compared to 2022 and the highest level since 2016. The Commission estimates that more than 90 percent of the irregular migrants who reach the EU use smugglers.

The smuggling networks make large profits from the criminal activity. It can amount to up to 6 billion euro per year worldwide that these networks earn. Combined with human smuggling, many people are also exploited in human trafficking for sexual purposes or for work. Addressing the smuggling powerfully and decisively is therefore of utmost importance to reduce both irregular migration and human trafficking and exploitation.

The Commission submitted a proposal in November aimed at strengthening police cooperation to prevent, detect and investigate migrant smuggling and human trafficking and to reinforce Europol's support for the prevention and combating of such crimes.

Part of the processing of a proposal from the Commission is that the national parliaments are to examine whether the proposal is compatible with the so-called subsidiarity principle, that is, that the EU shall take action only if and to the extent that the objectives of the planned action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States. This also includes a proportionality criterion, which means that the proposed action may not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the intended objective of the action.

The Committee, like the Government, views the proposed regulation's approach to creating conditions to combat human smuggling and human trafficking in a more effective way than today positively and considers that the higher level of ambition for work against this type of cross-border crime is justified.

In the committee's assessment, the proposal has in large parts been given a design that is compatible with the subsidiarity principle. But at the same time, the committee considers that parts of the proposal run contrary to the subsidiarity principle. Even though cooperation between Member States, third countries, and for example Europol and Frontex is necessary in the fight against human smuggling and human trafficking and that the objectives cannot be achieved to a sufficient extent by the Member States themselves, the committee is skeptical as to whether it requires regulation at the level of detail proposed in the Commission's proposal in all parts. This also aligns with the assessment that the government anchored with the committee during a consultation recently, namely that the government to some extent shares the Commission's assessment of the proposal's compatibility with the subsidiarity principle and the proportionality principle but considers that both the need for the proposed measures and the distribution of competence between the EU and the Member States need to be further clarified and justified.

The Committee notes that further analysis is required regarding the need for and the added value of regulating the area of activity in the manner proposed by the European Commission. The necessity of and the proportionality of the proposed measures should therefore be carefully assessed.

A deficiency is also that the proposals are not accompanied by detailed impact assessments. In the reasoned opinion in which the committee proposes that the Riksdag should submit to the commission, it is emphasized that in the continued work on the regulation, the consideration of how the different parts of the proposal relate to the subsidiarity principle is carefully weighed and the distribution of competence between the EU and the member states is taken into account.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Torsten Elofsson (KD)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are debating the subsidiarity test of a proposal for a regulation from the EU Commission. The proposal concerns, as has been mentioned here, strengthening Europol's role and capacity to combat human smuggling and human trafficking.

As a Christian Democrat, I welcome that the EU Commission is taking the initiative to strengthen police cooperation and that we work together to counter acute, cross-border problems such as human smuggling and human trafficking. It is a serious crime that fundamentally affects vulnerable people who are cynically exploited by human smugglers and creates major problems for the EU's member states. It is a crime where Europol has an important coordinating role.

It was for good reasons that cross-border organized crime and the fight against it was made one of the priorities of the Swedish presidency in the spring of 2023.

According to Europol's assessment, 70 percent of criminal networks are active in more than three EU countries simultaneously. This is a reality that requires deepened cooperation within law enforcement and criminal policy, where we must do certain things together across our national borders and where we also strive for better cooperation with third countries. If we do not do so, we will fall a step behind the criminals who exploit the EU's internal market and free movement to their advantage.

Mr. Speaker! Crime requires, as has been said, measures both at the national level and at the EU level. For Sweden's part, it is about completing all the measures that we Christian Democrats and the government have initiated with a paradigm shift within justice and migration policy. The pace of the reform work is high, with several measures already in place, and more are on the way.

To combat organized crime, we also need to do things together. Here, the joint EU authorities Europol and Eurojust are important, where we Christian Democrats want to see a strengthened coordination mandate and deepened cooperation with third countries and with the EU's candidate countries.

The issue of crime prevention is also linked to migration policy and the EU's border protection. The fact is that over 90 percent of the illegal migrants who come here pay human smugglers to get to Europe.

Many enter the union and then go underground, creating a breeding ground for growing shadow societies and crime all over Europe. As a Christian Democrat, I want to be clear that it must be us in Europe, and not the human traffickers, who decide who enters the union.

Mr. Speaker! Europol and their intelligence activities today fulfill an important function in the fight against organized crime. They constitute an intelligence and support service with expertise for all our law enforcement agencies, primarily the Swedish Police Authority but also the Swedish Economic Crime Authority, the Swedish Tax Agency, the Swedish Customs Service, Säpo and the Swedish Coast Guard.

Together with Europol and Eurojust, Swedish police and prosecutors can ensure that coordination regarding cross-border crime investigations functions. Eurojust can, for example, assist with coercive measures in ongoing preliminary investigations, and Europol has important databases that are an important information support in order to be able to arrest and prosecute serious criminals.

It is clear that we must deepen EU cooperation when it comes to cross-border crime. There is a good intention with the European Commission's proposal, namely to strengthen Europol's work against human smuggling, which is an activity that is very profitable for criminal networks. But at the same time as we must deepen the cooperation, we must also set limits for it, and in this case, it concerns a proposal to expand Europol's mandate.

Here, I mean as a Christian Democrat that the proposal from the EU Commission needs to be clarified. This applies particularly in the matter of Europol's operational powers, especially the proposals to give Europol's executive director a special mandate to propose that an operational working group be established, the deployment of personnel, and that Europol shall establish a so-called reserve pool of member state experts for deployment as Europol's operational support.

To give Europol an operational mandate according to the proposal currently before us is, in our opinion, not entirely compatible with the subsidiarity principle, which we Christian Democrats so strongly uphold, as this should be a national competence. I also regret that the proposal is not accompanied by any impact assessment. In the continued work on the proposal, a deeper analysis of what it would specifically entail in an implementation is needed, where the distribution of competence between the EU and the member states is carefully reviewed.

Subsidiarity test of EU proposals

Decisions should be made at the lowest appropriate level, as close to the citizens as possible. For us Christian Democrats, it is about having a sharp but narrow EU, an EU that handles cross-border issues but leaves it to the member states to handle issues that best belong within national competence.

Subsidiarity test of EU proposals

Then cooperation and coordination are central, and that is where we must be strong. But we do not want to see increased supranationality where we move operational power from Swedish police to the EU level. The operational must be up to the national law enforcement authorities, and preferably in so-called joint investigation teams in cases involving several countries. It is an instrument that has proven to work perfectly well but which can, of course, be developed and improved.

Mr. Speaker! Subsidiarity and proportionality must be safeguarded. I therefore move for approval of the committee's proposal.

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(Decisions were made under § 17.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)