At their video conference on 8 October 2020, the Home Affairs Ministers of the EU Member States continued discussions on a new European Police Partnership. They agreed that the existing security architecture should be improved in the following three areas:

• Applying new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to make better use of the growing flow of data;
• Reinforcing operational cooperation between police forces by consolidating the police cooperation acquis and making sure that police officers easily know which cooperation tools are available to them;
• Building an active, efficient partnership with third countries, while adhering to EU values.

The discussion follows the views initially exchanged at the informal videoconference of Home Affairs Ministers in July 2020 (--> eucrim 2/2020, 79). The development of a strategic European Police Partnership aims at bringing new impetus to police cooperation at the EU level. (TW)

In parallel, the European Commission launched an initiative on a new legal EU framework for cross-border police cooperation. Under the Security Union strategy, the aim is to establish a modern, single legal text that streamlines and consolidates the existing, partly fragmented framework. The underlying Inception Impact Assessment lists a number of topics that should be integrated into a future “Police Cooperation Code.” As a first step, the Commission gathered feedback for its ideas.