Текст 2

Germany pressed hard in the second half of last year, when Germany held the EU’s six-month presidency, for agreement on a Europol convention. It failed, but extracted a promise from France that a con­vention would be ready by the end of the French presidency in June.

Not everyone will bet that the deadline will be met, but there is movement towards it. At an informal ministerial meeting in January, the French managed to satisfy Spain’s insistence that Europol’s remit be extended to cover terrorism. They said this should be done within two years of the convention’s signing, to give enough time to smooth out disagreements over who is or is not a terrorist.

Упражнение III. Переведите текст 3 с листа:

Текст 3

At the same meeting, France also came up with a compromise on access to information: let routine stuff be freely available but let sensitive information be held within a Europol "inner core" (which the British, of course, dislike the sound of). Get such operational matters settled, the French reckon, and then other niggles, such as the role of the Court of Justice, can be dealt with quickly.

Maybe. But then comes the hard bit: fighting real crime. No police force anywhere has ever won a war against drugs, so why should Europol be different? Equally, why should Europol fare better than national police against illegal immigration? Conventions may impress bureaucrats, but gangsters?

Упражнение IV. Переведите тексты "In Brief" с листа:

1. The continuing row between Canada and Spain over fishing rights remained unresolved, with the European Commission threa­tening sanctions against Canada, but with Britain deeply reluctant to agree. A deal between the EU and Canada that would have given Spain and Canada roughly similar catches was blocked by the Spaniards.

2. Canada and the European Union settled their six-week fishing dispute in a deal which sharply reduces the amount of fish Spain can catch in the north-west Atlantic and greatly increases the supervision of Spanish and other boats fishing there.

3. Seven rich regions (five of them German-speaking) within the European Union’s 15 countries are 1 1/2 times better off per head than the EU average. Another 12 regions (mostly in Greece, Por­tugal and eastern Germany) are on average at least twice as poor.

4. When dealing with Irish troubles, British governments have a long habit of giving themselves Draconian powers. From William III’s anti-Catholic laws in the late 17th century to today's Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), these powers have been accused of sustaining the violence they were designed to stop. On March 8th, Michael Howard, the home secretary, passed up an opportunity to break this vicious circle when he asked MPs to vote for the annual renewal of the PTA, and won by 102 votes.

In its original form, the law was rushed through Parliament in 18 hours in response to public outrage to the Birmingham bombings in 1974. It was intended to last for only six months. But, like other “emergency” powers enacted in the past, it survived and has even been strengthened since then. The law allows the police to detain terrorist suspects for up to seven days without charge, on the approval of the home secretary, not that of a judge.

The basic question remains: Is the PTA doing its job of preventing terrorism? A detailed review by Lord Colville said the law was counter-productive in Northern Ireland because it angered many people and discouraged them from helping to root out terrorism.