The European Parliament adopted by 321 votes to 230, with 18 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Decision 2005/681/JHA establishing the European Police College (CEPOL).
The resolution regretted that the European Parliament was not fully involved in the evaluation of the applications and that only one candidate was presented to the relevant committee, although seven applications had been submitted further to the Council Presidency's call in July 2013 for applications to provisionally host the European Police College. Submitting candidatures were Ireland, Greece, Spain, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands and Finland.
The political agreement was confirmed at the JHA Council meeting of 8 October 2013. It intended to request more information on the impact assessment of the exact location before taking its final position.
The resolution called on the budgetary authorities to ensure that the additional costs relating to the change in the seat of CEPOL will be fully covered by the current host country and by additional Union budget and thus will not adversely affect the regular budget of CEPOL so as not to jeopardise the normal operational needs of CEPOL.
In parallel, Parliament adopted its position at first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure. The amendments adopted in plenary are the result of an agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council. They amended the proposal as follows:
Unilateral decision by the United Kingdom on CEPOL: the United Kingdom informed CEPOL that it had unilaterally decided that it no longer wished to host the seat on its territory. In addition to hosting CEPOL, Bramshill also hosts a national police training site of the National Policing Improvement Agency, which the United Kingdom had decided to replace by a new College of Policing to be located elsewhere. The United Kingdom had therefore decided to close the national police training site at Bramshill and to sell the site, indicating that the related costs were high and that no alternative business model to run the site had emerged. The Union and its Member States should mutually assist each other in maintaining CEPOL's operational activities. To that end, the United Kingdom in particular is required to ensure a smooth transition of CEPOL to its new location, without jeopardising the regular budget of CEPOL.
Seat: the draft Regulation stipulated that the seat of CEPOL should be in Budapest, Hungary.
Review: by 18 months following the entry into force of the Regulation, the Commission should submit a report on the effectiveness of this Decision, taking into account the need to ensure CEPOL's status as a separate Union agency. That report should, if appropriate, be accompanied by a legislative proposal to amend this Decision following a thorough cost-benefit analysis and impact assessment.
Entry into force: the Regulation should apply from 1 September 2014.