Europol – an EU Versailles

The extravagance and waste of the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Co-operation is the EU in microcosm

Europol’s fascistic HQ in The Hague, Netherlands

A version of this article appears in spiked.

With the UK-EU Brexit ‘reset’ being announced in London on the 19^th May, I’m reminded of one of the many repeatable sections from Tony Benn’s diaries, relating to his visit to the European Commission building in 1974:

“This huge Commission building in Brussels (…) is absolutely un-British. I felt as if I were going as a slave to Rome.”

The way the EU acts and thinks of itself, one can certainly understand this comparison – the lavish spending upon buildings and institutions; the scale designed to cower the human spirit; the total certainty of its rectitude. But in my time as a police officer in dealing with Europol, the law enforcement agency of the European Union, I would say a more accurate comparison would be with Versailles, the symbol of the Sun King’s absolute monarchy and excess.

I worked with Europol a number of times at their headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, and I never failed to be dumbfounded by the experience. When you approach the building, the first thing you notice is its sheer, fascistic size, and the fact that it’s shaped like a brutalist letter ‘E’ (obviously). You’re meant to be suitably impressed and intimidated before you even step inside.

As you head up to the main entrance, you go through a landscaped concourse with wild plants all about the place. I guess it’s meant to have that au naturel feel but, as a cold blows across from the equally spartan Novotel Den Haag World Forum hotel, it just feels like you’re walking through a brown-field wasteland.

It’s then that you notice the pond. It runs the entire length of one side of the building and contains koi carp. Yes, some of the most expensive fish in the world are purchased and kept at the European taxpayer’s expense so you have something nice to walk past as you go into the EU law enforcement agency’s HQ. But that’s only the start.

After you have successfully negotiated the secure entry procedure, you are then ushered in to the main reception area. Think the medal ceremony at the end of Star Wars IV: a New Hope. The place is cavernous, with original art installations hanging down from the ceiling and the distant bing-bonging of the lifts bouncing off wall-to-wall marble.

The Operations Centre in the building, from which these pan-European ventures are run, would put a James Bond villain to shame. They are easily the most over-the-top and opulent I have ever seen, and certainly more so than any of the operation rooms I’ve seen in Britain. Banks of screens, clocks and monitors which rise out of the desks. Cost doesn’t ever seem to be a consideration with Europol but, crucially, things are no more efficient – often less so - and much more unbending.

When I worked with Europol, it was to generally to facilitate British police’s participation in Europe-wide policing initiatives. This was prior to the UK’s departure from the European Union and also post-departure. UK police senior management and the Home Office were desirous of our continued involvement in these (which I think speaks volumes). Evidence would be gathered by participating police forces across Europe but, rather than acting upon that evidence immediately (which would constitute sound operational policing), it would only be acted upon during a defined Europol ‘day of action’ several weeks or months hence.

After each day of action, a triumphant press release would be issued. How much evidence would have been lost in the intervening period between evidence collection and action day is anyone’s guess, but that wasn’t the main point of these initiatives; it was a propaganda exercise. With Europol specifically and the EU generally, it is (and always was) about profligate, showy justifications for its own bloated bureaucracy.

With the publication of the reset and the slow realisation as to what it means for the United Kingdom and our security, there are a number of issues we need to be cognisant of:

· Many of the key points highlight that the EU will “explore ways” to deepen co-operation and facilitate speedier exchanges of information - this is not a pledge and is Euro-speak for essentially doing nothing.

· A pledge to “swiftly” finalise arrangements for co-operation with Europol that were part of the original post-Brexit Trade and Co-operation Agreement – a good example of the glacial speed at which the EU works, seeing as the UK left in 2019.

· Agreement to deepen co-operation and quicken exchanges of information databases of DNA, fingerprints and vehicle registration data – sharing such information as DNA with jurisdictions which, historically, have had little regard to individual rights for what could be relatively minor offences could lead to British citizens’ intimate medical and genetic information being shared unnecessarily, especially as it is not yet known the full extent of information that may be obtained from a DNA sample.

· Pledge to “share best practices” on how to manage returns of ‘irregular’ migrants to third countries – we’ve already given hundreds of millions of pounds to France for this purpose, and how has that gone?

The European Union’s only concern will always be the self-perpetuation of the European Union. From a security point of view, it looks as though, with this deal, the EU has got all that it wanted without making a firm commitment to anything in return. If the rest of this reset like that, it’s no wonder that Ursula von der Leyen had such a big smile on her face.