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BRITAIN is organising a series of talks with members of the EU's national parliaments this week to ensure broad support for a proposed package of anti-terrorism laws.
Up to 150 national deputies -- six from each of the 25 European Union (EU) member states -- are also meet with EU officials, including British Home Secretary Charles Clarke and EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, to discuss the package drafted by EU governments last week.
The talks at the European Parliament will focus on the proposed data retention law, the European arrest warrant and the role of Europol, the EU police agency, and Eurojust, an EU body of prosecutors and magistrates.
Britain advocates tough anti-terrorism laws, and the meetings in Brussels were proposed by the British parliament to discuss the role that national parliamentarians could play to improve the judicial and police cooperation between the EU member states.
EU governments agreed last week to require telecommunications companies to keep records of phone and e-mail traffic for, at least, one year as part of the bloc's anti-terrorist campaign.
The decision by the 25 EU justice ministers followed years of European debate over the privacy and cost concerns of data retention. The ministers agreed phone companies must keep records for, at least, one year and Internet access providers must retain data on Web sites visited and e-mail addresses used for six months.
In addition to the data retention law, the EU hopes to have by the end of the year a strategy to prevent young European Muslims from radicalising, new rules on air passenger records, uniform ID card standards, an EU-wide evidence warrant and better information-sharing on lost and stolen explosives.
Support from national parliaments and the European Parliament is needed to implement the measures.
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