§ At their meeting in Luxembourg in June 1976 Ministers of the Interior, and Ministers of Justice having similar responsibilities, of the Member States of the European Community agreed on a programme of work to be carried out by officials to strengthen co-operation on matters arising in the field of their responsibilities, in particular with regard to law and order, Ministers held a second meeting in London on 31st May in order to review progress and commission further work. Ministers noted with satisfaction that existing co-operation 222W between Member States had been greatly strengthened through the activities of the Working Groups of experts that had been set up to implement the programme agreed at Luxembourg. They endorsed proposals by officials for developing practical and effective measures to cope with problems which transcend national boundaries, taking due account of the activities of other international bodies.
§ Ministers reached the following conclusions on the areas under consideration by officials:
- 1. Ministers reaffirmed that terrorism is a crime, from whatever motive it is practised, and should be treated as such; but they recognised that it posed special problems for law enforcement and security agencies. They welcomed arrangements proposed to strengthen and develop the exchange of information about terrorist activities and techniques for handling major terrorist incidents. Ministers stressed the importance of the closest possible co-operation between the relevant agencies in each country in the exchange of information about activities of terrorist and subversive groups. Ministers agreed that in the event of an imminent threat of terrorist action, the authorities in the countries concerned should take immediate co-operative action as necessary.
- 2. Ministers agreed that representatives of Member States should continue to discuss matters of common concern in combating international terrorism (a number of which, such as traffic in arms, were specifically identified during the course of the meeting) and to evaluate the experience gained by Member States in handling previous terrorist incidents.
- 3. Ministers welcomed arrangements for establishing working groups of experts in the technical field and agreed that arrangements should be put in hand for the exchange of police personnel and for the convening of conferences of experts to consider aspects of police training.
- 4.They agreed on arrangements proposed for developing co-operation between Member States in the field of civil aviation security.
- 5. They agreed that a working group of experts should be set up to provide for the exchange of views, information and experience on all aspects of measures against fire and other related tasks.
- 6. They instructed Senior Officials to put in hand arrangements to implement these conclusions and to report, back to a further meeting of Ministers.