University of Dundee The counterterrorism agreements of Europol with third countries
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Europol to export their norms to third countries which could accuse Europeans of double standards. In other words, when Europol insists on a third country adopting EU’s data protection rules this country could invoke the example of the Europol-U.S. agreement in order to undermine EU’s arguments on data protection. This could affect, for instance, the relations between Europol and Turkey which are analysed in the next section.
Since the EU-Turkey relations were enhanced in 1987, when Turkey applied for a full membership, the fight against terrorism has always been a tense topic between the two parties due to Turkey’s hard-line counterterrorism policies towards domestic terrorist organisations such as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The EU institutions, such as the European Parliament, the European Council and the Commission, have frequently urged Turkey to transfer into the country’s counter-terrorism policies and implement in practice EU’s human rights-related norms and legislation. 56
In 1999, the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and the PKK declared a ceasefire and withdrew its militants to Northern Iraq and this development brought also a change in the EU-Turkey relations on counterterrorism matters. In the same year the EU also provided a strong membership prospect to Turkey, which triggered a number of human rights-related and EU-originating reforms in Turkey. In particular, during these years, Turkey adopted nine harmonisation packages that encompassed a number of reforms related to improving the human rights conditions in Turkey’s counter-terrorism policy. 57
Regarding the relations of Europol with Turkey, in 2000 the Council of the EU authorised Europol to sign an agreement with Turkey and a strategic agreement was signed between the Turkish National Police and Europol in 2004. 58
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an agreement with Europol. 59 The scope of this agreement was limited and it included the exchange of technical expertise and strategic information, training and internship programmes, the sharing of best practices, and mutual consultation of the two parties. The sharing of personal data was excluded from this agreement.
The negotiation and conclusion of an operational agreement that would allow the exchange of personal data would depend on whether Turkey would adopt EU’s data protection rules. 60 Indeed, the EU authorities such as EU’s counterterrorism coordinator have emphasized that the incorporation of EU’s data protection rules into the domestic level of Turkey is a central condition for the exchange of personal data between Europol and Turkey. 61 In particular, an important hurdle for Turkey’s cooperation with Europol is that Turkey has not yet ratified the Council of Europe’s “Convention of the for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data” which was signed by Turkey in 1981. In order to enhance its counterterrorism cooperation with the Europol, Turkey has amended its constitution in a way that the protection of personal data is explicitly postulated. Furthermore, following this amendment, in June 2012, a draft law on the protection of personal data was also submitted to the parliament for consideration. Despite the above developments, there was no great progress in the adoption of the EU data protection norms by Turkey. According to senior officials from Turkish national police, the adoption of rules for the protection of personal data limits the capacity of the law enforcement agencies in Turkey to access personal data while conducting counterterrorism investigations and this is the main reason why the adoption process is slow. 62
In the face of Turkey’s reluctant stance regarding data protection, the EU and Europol have shown that they are not willing to compromise on data protection issues. This stance is in contrast with the stance that EU and Europol had towards the US demands and approach as seen previously. 17
The explanation of this inconsistency lay in the level of interdependence between Turkey and the EU and the fact that the EU is less dependent on Turkey than the vice versa. This creates a power asymmetry between Turkey and the EU and therefore the latter is less flexible and can more easily impose its data protection rules to the former.
In particular, the first factor that has shaped the power asymmetry between Turkey and the EU is Turkey’s candidate status; as mentioned previously, the EU membership has been a strategic goal for Turkey in terms of both the economic and the political benefits that the membership entails. The “gatekeeper” role of the EU has increased Europeans’ power and the EU can as a result set the adoption of data protection rules by Turkey as a prerequisite for concluding a Europol-Turkey agreement. In this sense, Turkey’s longstanding counterterrorism experience and its enthusiasm for cooperating with the EU countries is not perceived as an opportunity by the EU and the member states to improve their own counterterrorism capacity. Turkey’s candidate status gives a negative impression that the EU does not have much to learn from Turkey and Turkey’s demands for closer cooperation were not enough to stimulate and bring together EU’s political actors for a common compromise. Therefore the EU does not take any initiative to mobilise member states and EU institutions to take action in line with Turkey’s demands.
A second factor that has increased the power asymmetry between the EU and Turkey is that the PKK has not been a major threat to EU countries, if compared with to Al Qaeda network which was involved in the London and Madrid bombings of 2004 and 2005 respectively. On the contrary, there is even the risk for Europol and the EU that enhanced cooperation with Turkey can mobilise the PKK networks against EU states; for example when the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999 there were several violent protests in European countries. 63 Additionally, the strong links of the PKK networks and the Kurdish diaspora with members of the Yüklə 275,33 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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