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EU Borders and Shifting Internal Security pp 157–175Cite as

Police and Customs Cooperation Centres and Their Role in EU Internal Security Governance

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Abstract

Police and Customs Cooperation Centres (PCCCs) have been established throughout the Schengen area as an important institution reinforcing mechanisms and procedures of cross-border law enforcement cooperation. Since the first PCCC became operational in Offenburg in 1999, about 40 centres have emerged, performing various functions and tasks in the area of internal security and law enforcement and constituting a valuable local tool of direct cross-border cooperation. In the reflection period preceding the 2009 Stockholm Programme, the so-called Future Group (High Level Advisory Group on EU Internal Security) suggested that the EU should establish a model of PCCC applicable to all member states and serving as ‘real police-customs centres of crisis management capable of handling events on an international scale.’ This chapter seeks to verify the above proposal and to reflect further on the importance of PCCCs for internal security of the EU and for cross-border cooperation in the Schengen zone. Several PCCCs will be analysed in order to extract similarities and differences as functional and institutional prerequisites for the elaboration of a framework PCCC. The evaluation of the role that PCCCs perform in everyday cross-border police cooperation will be juxtaposed with new instruments of Schengen governance, adopted in October 2013, particularly new provisions on common rules on the temporary reintroduction of border control at internal borders.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The group was integrating ministers representing countries holding “trio Presidencies” in the years 2007–2009 (Germany, Portugal, Slovenia, France, Czech Republic, Sweden, and one delegate from the troika composed by Spain, Belgium and Hungary), a representative of the common law area (UK) as an observer, and experts from individual Member States as needed. EU institutions were represented by a delegate from the General Secretariat of the Council, the Chairman of the LIBE (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) Committee of the European Parliament, as well as the Commissioner for Home Affairs (German 2007; Crosbie 2007; German Federal Ministery of the Interior 2011).

  2. 2.

    Article 46 of the CISA provides that:

    “1. In specific cases, each Contracting Party may, in compliance with its national law and without being so requested, send the Contracting Party concerned any information which may be important in helping it combat future crime and prevent offences against or threats to public policy and public security.

    2. Information shall be exchanged, without prejudice to the arrangements for cooperation in border areas referred to in Article 39(4), via a central body to be designated. In particularly urgent cases, the exchange of information within the meaning of this Article may take place directly between the police authorities concerned, unless national provisions stipulate otherwise. The central body shall be informed of this as soon as possible.” See Schengen Schengen 2000.

  3. 3.

    For example, German and French authorities agreed in 2004 to exchange dactyloscopic data and then, following the entry into force of the Prüm treaty, also DNA records. See Felsen (2011: 80).

  4. 4.

    An anonymous PCCC official. Author’s interview, June 2015.

  5. 5.

    An anonymous French PCCC official. Author’s interview, June 2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jagiellonian University, ul. Jablonowskich 5, 31-114, Kraków, Poland

    Artur Gruszczak

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  1. Artur Gruszczak
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Correspondence to Artur Gruszczak .

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  1. Europe University Viadrina, Frankfurt, Oder, Germany

    Raphael Bossong

  2. School of Languages and Social Scie, Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom

    Helena Carrapico

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Gruszczak, A. (2016). Police and Customs Cooperation Centres and Their Role in EU Internal Security Governance. In: Bossong, R., Carrapico, H. (eds) EU Borders and Shifting Internal Security. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17560-7_9

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