Full interview with Jonathan Faull, Director-General European Commission's DG Justice and Home Affairs 

The Tampere European Council in October 1999 set a May 2004 deadline to complete priority EU actions in organised crime and immigration & asylum. What will the main JHA priorities be in an enlarged EU?

Given the deadline of 1 May 2004 set by the Amsterdam Treaty and the Tampere agenda for the development of the first phase of the EU's area of Freedom, Security and Justice, the Commission intends to present in June 2004 a Communication assessing the achievements of the last five years and indicating what remains to be done. The Commission considers that the draft Treaty texts produced by the Convention and currently under discussion in the IGC are a very good basis on which to build the second stage of the area of Freedom, Security and Justice. It is time to make sure that law-abiding people can take full advantage of our vast territory, our great area of democratic values and our single market with its many common policies, while on the other hand putting in place the measures we need to fight successfully against those who seek to exploit the Union's openness and diversity for criminal purposes. That is the challenge ahead, the new frontier.

At the moment we are working, in particular, on the issue of procedural safeguards for suspects and defendants in criminal proceedings throughout the Union. Following our Green Paper in early 2003 and the positive responses we received to it, we will present in 2004 a proposal for a framework decision on this matter as one of a series of measures to guarantee protection of fundamental rights. We will issue a Green Paper on alternatives to detention for people awaiting trial in another Member State.

After the failure of the IGC talks and the recognition that no agreement could be found on a constitution for the EU, some Member States are reported to be in favour of creating a "two-speed Europe". What would a core Europe mean in the field of Justice and Home Affairs?

Europe has always progressed at different speeds. After all, the whole process started with six Member States in 1958. We have 12 Member States sharing a common currency. However, accommodation of the diversity between Member States should take place within the EU's institutional framework. This applies to JHA issues as well. Take the Schengen area, one of Europe's great successes. It does not encompass the whole EU, while at the same time it does include non-EU members (Norway and Iceland). The important thing is that we have brought its policy development and decision-making processes into the normal EU framework. Time and time again it has been shown that the "Community method" works best: let's use it.

What is your perception of the way the G5 (the Ministers of Interior from the EU five biggest Member States - Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) have gone about tackling terrorism and illegal immigration. Could this lead to enhanced co-operation?

The so-called "G5" meets informally and does not take decisions. Perhaps these meetings help the participants clarify their national positions to each other. So far, I must say that they have not led to changes in the JHA Council, where the five countries concerned agree and disagree with each other no more and no less than they did before. I doubt therefore that enhanced cooperation will follow.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, most proposals in JHA now appear to focus heavily on security and the fight against illegal immigration, terrorism and organised crime. What does the Commission intend to do to redress the balance in favour of the "freedom" aspect of the area of freedom, security and justice?

It is true that following the tragic events of the 11th September 2001, the European Union had to react promptly to the terrorist threat and respond to the public's demand for enhanced security. The Commission moved fast and, for example, secured adoption of "framework decisions" on the European Arrest Warrant and definitions and sanctions applicable to terrorist offences. EU policy seeks a balanced approach between freedom, security and justice. Since 2001, we have worked hard on the mutual recognition programme. Mutual recognition means that courts in one Member State recognise and enforce the decisions taken in another, without further ado. That in turn requires mutual confidence between Member States: judges and ordinary people must trust each other's legal systems and procedures. Some common understandings about rules, definitions and procedures are therefore necessary.

In September 2003, Italian Justice Minister Giuseppe Pisanu proposed to set up legal immigrant quotas and asked the Commission to do an in-depth study on this issue. What are the preliminary results? Is it likely that quotas will be set? How are they going to be determined?

The October 2003 European Council asked us to study the use of quotas and consider more widely "the relationship between legal and illegal immigration". The study is under way and its conclusions will be presented in a Communication at the end of April this year. It will review Member States' and Acceding Countries' systems of admission for economic migrants and bilateral labour agreements. An analysis will be included of the impact of legal migration measures on illegal migration flows. It is not our intention to propose EU-wide quotas, but rather to consider the ways in which national quotas, where they exist, can help us in our discussions with foreign countries about illegal immigration and readmission of people living illegally in the EU.

What specific plans does DG JAI have to guarantee the effective protection of the Union's external borders after the next phase of enlargement? Will the new Member States receive extra funding to increase their human resources/equipment?

In the process of preparing the new Member States for accession, we have checked in detail their compliance with the Schengen and external border rules. A great deal of work has been done in the new Member States. In addition, Article 35 of the Treaty of Accession created the "Schengen Facility" of almost 1 billion euros in the period 2004-2006 for seven of them to assist them in the continuing effort to upgrade their infrastructure at the future external borders, including for preparation for entering the Schengen area fully. It should be borne in mind that the internal border controls between the old and the new Member States and between the new member States themselves will not disappear on 1 May 2004. As with the last enlargement, this will be done only when the Council decides that all the "necessary conditions for the application of all parts of the acquis concerned" have been met. So there is still a lot of work ahead of us.