EU embryonic Home Office set up in secret talks under Lisbon Treaty

Plans for an embryonic EU “Home Office” to organise intelligence sharing and lead the fight against terrorism and crime were agreed in secret talks last week, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

Acting under a little-noticed section of the Lisbon Treaty, officials set up a Standing Committee on Internal Security (Cosi) to implement what is effectively the the EU’s first ever internal security policy.

Under the plans, the scope of information available to law enforcement agencies and “public security organisations” would be extended from the sharing of DNA and fingerprint databases, kept and stored for new digital generation ID cards, to include CCTV footage and material gathered from internet surveillance.

Cosi will coordinate policy between national forces and EU organisations such as Europol, the Frontex borders agency, the European Gendarmerie Force and the Brussels intelligence sharing Joint Situation Centre, under measures known as the “Stockholm programme”. It will sharply step up collaboration among member states’ police forces.

Full article here