§ Mr. GaleTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the recent meeting of Trevi Ministers in Copenhagen.
§ Mr. HurdA meeting of Trevi Ministers was held in Copenhagen on 9 December under the presidency of the Danish Minister of Justice, Mr. Ninn-Hansen. We discussed developments since our previous meeting in Brussels in April including terrorist incidents in a number of member states and successes against terrorist activity. 435W We agreed that continued co-operation between countries is the most effective way of countering terrorism and specific successes of such co-operation were reported at the meeting.
A number of initiatives launched during the United Kingdom presidency have come to fruition. The coming into operation of the secure communication system has enabled a more rapid exchange of a variety of information to take place between member states, including the exchange of details of the theft and discovery of arms and explosives—an item which had been agreed in principle at our previous meeting. I reported on a successful conference of Trevi officials held in London in November on the detection of firearms and explosives especially at airports, which enabled the participants to exchange information on research into new techniques and to assess existing techniques. We also agreed an updated assessment of the terrorist threat to Community countries.
In other areas of Trevi activity we approved a detailed agreement for developing the network of drug liaison officers outside the countries of the EC for the benefit of Community countries. This is the result of an initiative taken by the United Kingdom last year. I also reported that the conference in London in October had established an international network of co-operation to prevent and deal with football hooliganism.