MEETING TO REVIEW ERD'S PLAN FOR MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE, 31 JULY
1. A meeting to review the ERD plan for Mutual Legal Assistance was held on Monday 31 July in the FCO.
Present were:
CJ B White, ERD (Chairman)
JM Hawkins, ERD
G Brown, ERD
Miss R Bell, WIAD
D Fall, NCAD
P Waterworth,
Legal Advisers
P Vallance, C7 Home Office Mrs J Jones, Legal Division,
Home Office
D/I Tim Wren, NDIU
J Cooney, HM Customs
Mrs M Manderson-Jones,
HM Customs
D/Ch Insp Brookes,
New Scotland Yard
2.
2.
Review of action over the last 3 months
Mr White opened by inviting a review of action over the last 3 months. The main points were:
a)
b)
c)
Mr Hawkins said that the agreement with Spain had been signed in the margins of the European Council meeting in Madrid on 26 June by Sir G Howe. The Swedish text was initialled at the Pompidou Group meeting in May by Mr Hurd.
Good progress had been made during visits to Bonn and Rome. Both Italy and Germany were now considering clean texts that we had forwarded.
But
Mr Vallance said that talks had taken place with the Netherlands in May. He was currently studying comments by the Dutch on the clean draft we had produced after the meeting. In view of Dutch legislation this agreement would have to be restricted primarily to confiscation. Mr Cooney expressed doubts about the value of a limited agreement which had no provisions for formal cooperation at the investigation stage. the Netherlands were a priority target. Customs had experienced difficulties there. Det Ch Insp Brookes confirmed that the Police had also experienced difficulties in investigations involving the Dutch. Mr Vallance noted that at the talks with the Dutch it had been agreed that a limited agreement was better than none at all. Mr White said that we needed to be most careful about concluding agreements which fell short of our ideal. We should continue to press hard for
GBLASN