On a day that brought news that another Algerian has breached Lisbon’s airport security and entered the country illegally, the European Commission has given Portugal two months to clean up its act over the exchange of information in the combat of terrorism.
At issue, explains Diário de Notícias, are the Prüm Decisions, which introduced new proceedings and “should have been adopted” by member states as many as five years ago.
Portugal is not the only country to be lagging behind in getting up-to-speed. Croatia, Greece, Ireland and Italy are also being given the same time-frame to catch up.
The Prüm Decisions basically allow member states to analyse databases of other countries, including DNA, fingerprints and car registrations.
But Portugal’s IT capability has not stretched to this kind of automatic sharing – even though the EC says the Prüm constitutes “an important element of the European Agenda for Security”, adopted in 2015.
If Portugal fails to come up trumps in two months’ time, DN says the EC will very possibly take the issue to the European Court of Justice.
This is not as drastic as it may sound. Portugal has been found wanting in this court on previous occasions, and done very little about it (click here).
