City fears over EU Supercops plan

Dan Atkinson|Mail13 April 2012

CONTROVERSIAL proposals to give a new European Union police squad rights to investigate City fraud will be resisted by Britain, Financial Mail has learned.

There are also fears that European Commission proposals - published in a staff working paper on June 2 - would require Britain and other EU member states to list everybody's personal bank account details on huge databases that could be accessed by investigators.

Under the plans, investigators from, for example, Slovakia, Cyprus, Germany or Italy would have the power to carry out major inquiries in this country, to make arrests and launch prosecutions.

And because the EU squad would take the premier role in fighting financial crime, it would override agencies such as the Serious Fraud Office and the City Fraud Squad.

However, a Home Office spokesman said: 'In general, we support co-operation among EU member states and the sharing of information, but we believe actions should be taken nationally.'

He added that the Government did not believe the database proposals would oblige the UK to set up 'a centralised register of bank accounts'.

The changes would establish a financial crime squad inside the EU's police agency Europol, giving it a key role in fighting tax fraud, which until now has been undertaken by sovereign states. European home affairs ministers will vote on proposals next month.

The scheme is one of a package of measures to harmonise EU criminal, justice and asylum policies, which triggered a fierce debate in Parliament last month.

The package would transform Europol, based in The Hague, from its information exchange role into a pan-European police force.

The European Commission has said that it is essential to 'give the EU a coherent policy to fight effectively against serious crime. The fight against financial crime must remain a priority'. It added that member

states should 'set up national systems for recording bank accounts so that account holders can be identified'.

EU powers on financial crime are restricted to cases of fraud against the EU budget or its institutions. Even here, investigators have no power of arrest in Britain.

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