madam president the liberal group in the european parliament has always been supportive of the european arrest warrant because of its importance in the fight against serious cross-border crime
however simultaneously my group has always pointed out that the european arrest warrant system would be incomplete without advancing procedural defence rights in europe
we have constantly criticised the council for not progressing that agenda on the basis of the commission's comprehensive proposal
now we are finally changing the situation on defence rights and i applaud vice-president reding for her commitment to this programme under the road map
the question is will this be enough to compensate for the failings of the european arrest warrant
i think not
we also have to do something about the way the european arrest warrant system operates
however let us just note the successes between two thousand and five and two thousand and nine the arrest warrant has secured the extradition of almost twelve zero drug smugglers child sex offenders rapists and others
they include hussain osman one of the two thousand and five london bombers
no londoner could be ungrateful to the european arrest warrant in the light of that
he came back within six weeks from italy
however in the uk at least and we will hear this later the european arrest warrant has become a favourite stick with which the eurosceptics batter the reputation of the eu
their cause has been helped by several notorious cases of breaches of human rights
in fact the uk receives the second highest number of requests for surrender after germany
both the commission and defence rights organisations like fair trials international i declare an interest i am a patron and justice on whose council i sit have pinpointed failings in the arrest warrant
problems with it being used for minor offences the lack of legal representation in the issuing state long pre-trial detention periods the lack of bail for people who are not nationals of the issuing state and bad detention conditions are all cited with reason
the commission does not think that we need to recast the european arrest warrant
i think we need to reconsider that
firstly we need to have a much sounder basis for the requirement for a proportionality check so that minor offences are not covered
secondly we need to have an explicit human rights check in the executing state
that needs to be made explicit and not implicit
thirdly it needs to be recognised when it is not reasonable to execute a european arrest warrant so that someone is not followed by alerts in the schengen information system around europe even though their surrender has been refused once on valid grounds
we also need to do something about the bail situation not least by implementing the framework decision on supervision orders
there do need to be changes to the european arrest warrant but fundamentally it has been a success
those who question it need to ask themselves whether they would be satisfied with criminals spending years beyond the reach of the courts and beyond the reach of justice because traditional extradition takes too long and has too much red tape
