General programme "Security and Safeguarding Liberties": specific programme "Prevention and fight against crime, 2007-2013

The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Maria Romano LA RUSSA (UEN, Italy) and made some amendments to the Commission’s proposal:

- Parliament wanted a focus on the operational aspect of the programme, and called for the involvement of local authorities, the increased use of joint investigation and law enforcement teams and the organisation of specific anti-terrorism training activities;

- it emphasised the standardisation of procedures and the development and use of a crime statistics tool;

- the programme must lay the foundations for a permanent compensation fund over and above the various national systems, to provide a guaranteed common minimum level of protection and compensation;

- it must promote, within suitable projects, the concept of ‘citizens’ involvement’ and to foster initiatives based on the active involvement of civil society and its stakeholders in improving overall security;

- whilst the programme does not deal with judicial cooperation, it may cover actions aiming at cooperation among judicial authorities and law enforcement authorities and involving, inter alia, the establishment under the cooperation arrangements between Europol and Eurojust of a permanent emergency legal assistance unit responsible for determining, on the basis of the situation leading to the referral, which legal basis may be used to extend police and/or security service operations in full compliance with the law;

- there are provisos on the involvement of public-private partnerships;

- access to funding shall be facilitated by the application of the principle of proportionality as regards the documents to be supplied and by the creation of a database for the submission of applications;

- The Commission shall, as far as possible, simplify procedures and ensure that calls for proposals provided for in this programme do not entail a bureaucratic burden for promoters of the projects proposed. Calls for proposals may, where appropriate, be organised in two stages, the first of which would only require information that was strictly necessary for a proper assessment of the project to be sent;

- the Commission shall ensure that the actions provided for under this Decision are subject to ex ante evaluation, monitoring and ex post evaluation. It shall ensure that the programme is accessible and is implemented in a transparent manner;

- Parliament amended the number of reports to be delivered by the Commission. The latter must provide a succinct yearly reports including such information as is necessary to measure the programme's success in quantitative terms;

- organisations in receipt of an operating grant by virtue of this programme may take part in calls for proposals for other programmes, without however being entitled to preferential treatment vis-à-vis other organisations financed from budgets other than that of the EU;

- all institutions, association or activities in receipt of a grant under this programme have the obligation to acknowledge the support granted by the European Union. To this end the Commission shall lay down detailed visibility guidelines;

- with a view to fostering the dissemination of results, the tools generated by the projects funded under this programme and relating in particular to crime statistics and data shall be made available to the public free of charge by electronic means; Each year, the Commission, together with the Member States, shall publish a list of the projects financed under this programme, with a short description of each project.