As it is known world-wide, EU is the organization which is unique especially in its functioning as a supranational organization. Before the Maastricht Treaty (1992), the main aim of the EU project was to connect the European states to each other in order to reach a wealthier Europe and to recover the destruction caused during the World War II. EU project started a community, by establishing a common market in Europe. At the end of the Cold War it was switched to EU including the new independent states as members from Eastern Europe.

EU was something more than a regular international organization, so it started acting differently from the federal system in its strict sense and also from the regular international organizations known before EU.

With this study, I try to explain developments in the "justice and security" field that took place after EC became EU. As can be presumed, Europol is comprising a very important part of this new type of organization, namely of the EU. Starting from the very moment of the establishment of Europol, we hear and read comments about Europol's current and future status in the EU. We hear comments whether it is becoming an organization similar to the American FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation). I am going to try to detect its differences from the American FBI and to examine the Council Decision (2009/371/JHA dated 06.04.2009) which entered into force on 01.01.2010 and in the end I am going to make an assessment trying to support the fact that Europol is currently not functioning the same as FBI, but in the future it may function like FBI or at least it is on the way to function similar to such.

Europol from the beginning until the council decision (2009/371/JHA dated 06.04.2009):

The idea of creating a police cooperation organization in EC came into minds in the 1970s and the first group, named TREVI (Terrorism Racism Extremism Violence International) came into being in 1970s. After that, in the Maastricht it was decided that a police cooperation organization would come into being and in 1994 EDU was established. In 1995 it became European Police Office and in 2010 it is named European Law Enforcement Agency.

As can be seen, the idea of a police cooperation organization in Europe came into being before the establishment of the EU in the sense we conceive it, but it was after the Maasrticht Treaty where the establishment of Europol was agreed. From this moment on, one can ask "what is it Europol doing as a police cooperation organization?"

I am not going to be giving the list of crimes that Europol is responsible for, however I will try to give the idea of why such a huge and meticulous organization was needed. With the Schengen Agreement, the concept of the free-circulation of the individuals and products came into existence. This meant that the criminals and the organized criminal groups would also be able to circulate in the Schengen Area. This situation was the one to be handled by EU's law enforcement and judicial authorities. After the necessity coming out of this situation, Europol was established as a police cooperation organization. The first crimes that had to be handled were drug smuggling, smuggling in the radioactive substances and terrorism. As can be guessed, these crimes are the crimes which need an organizational structure and can be active in more than one country, namely more than one EU country.

Under the conditions mentioned above, Europol has the competency to deal with these cases. What actually it is doing is that it provides the member states' law enforcement bodies with the useful information or the specific analysis they may need in their national or joint investigation.

On the other hand, in Europol we see the JITs (Joint Investigation Teams) and AWFs (Analysis Work Files), which provide very useful information and analysis with the national units.

Determining which crimes shall be under the competence of Europol and which crimes shall not be, took a bit of a time. After the Council Decisions from 2000 to 2008 the Europol-crimes became as following:

Forgery of money (money counterfeiting) and means of payment, money laundering, terrorism, trafficking in human beings, illegal immigrant smuggling, corruption, unlawful drug trafficking, computer crime, organized crime, racism and xenophobia.

With the new Council Decision (2009/371/JHA dated 06.04.2009) we have some new arguments to contradict the phrase "Europol is NOT an FBI, and not intended to become a comparable instrument of the EU". [1]

First of everything, Europol became an EU institution, which means with the new Council Decision, it is switching from an intergovernmental organization into an official EU institution such as OLAF(Office Européen de Lutte Anti-fraude), FRONTEX, EUROJUST, etc. With that decision, it is going to be receiving its budget directly from European Commission and its budget is going to be supervised by the European Parliament.

With the new Council Decision, Europol is urged to take part more actively in the investigations taking place in member states, of course without the competency to arrest people, namely without investigative competencies. This includes the fact that when there are strong evidences that a serious or organized crime was committed, the fact that Europol should take part in the JITs more often between the member states, the fact that from now on the ENUs (Europol National Units) are going to have direct access to the Europol Information System and that Europol is going to be entitled to request an investigation from the member states.

The new council decision brings a new establishment in Europol, which is making it more reliable in the personal data protection. There is going to be a personal data protection officer who is going to be independent from Europol Organizational Structure. It is the new standard for it to be safer in data protection. Since it becomes an EU institution, OLAF is going to be able to examine the financial acts of Europol.

Another very important aspect of the new council decision is that the existence of an organized criminal structure is not a limiting element for its competency anymore. From the date of the new council decision, serious crime is more important in deciding whether a crime is under the competency of Europol or not. When we consider this side of the council decision, I assume that Europol is urged to take part in more investigations technically and this move seems to widen the scope of the crimes for which Europol is responsible.

A Brief Comparison of Europol with American FBI

After presenting Europol and a very short presentation of the new council decision, we can start giving a very brief introduction to the American FBI. First of all, we have to see the fact that EU is not a federal state like the US, hence we have to admit that at least for the moment we should not wait from Europol to have the competency to arrest any person or to take part actively with its investigative powers in any of the operations except the cases mentioned in the council decision (2009/371/JHA dated 06.04.2009) which entered into force on 01.01.2010.
FBI is the primary law enforcement agency of the Department of Justice. It is an investigative agency, capable of investigating the crimes accepted as federal. In addition to this task, it has the responsibility of gathering intelligence which is making the task of FBI more complicated. However, these two responsibilities give FBI the ability to handle especially the terrorism threat.

When we consider Europol and FBI, we see that Europol does not have anything like the "FBI Charter". According to the federal law which is in force in the US, FBI has the authority to investigate all the federal crime not assigned exclusively to another federal agency. (US Code, Title 28, Chapter 33- Federal Bureau of Investigation, Section 533; Code of Federal Regulations, Title 28, Subpart P- Federal Bureau of Investigation, Section 0.85)[2] . On the other hand, FBI has the authority to investigate threats to national security such as international terrorism, espionage, sabotage, assassination conducted by or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons. Hence, as we see FBI has two main responsibilities: national security (counter terrorism, counterintelligence, cyber crime) and criminal priorities (public corruption, civil rights, organized crime, whitecollar crime and violent crime) .[3]

When observing the competency of FBI, we can deduce one specific issue: As long as the inter-state commerce increases with the inter-state crime -thus inter-state crime- the federal intervention becomes justified. This aspect of the development of the competency of FBI, seems similar to the history of Europol in the sense that the European States also needed a unified law enforcement agency, namely Europol, after the Schengen Agreement, making the free circulation of goods and people, namely of the criminals and the organized groups: As long as commercial and economic integration moves forward, an active police cooperation organization and a law enforcement agency becomes more necessary.

The Treaty of Amsterdam increased the EU effect on the internal decision of the member states and that approximated the process concerning the criminal acts committed in a member state and their elements with the European dimension. This had been a similar case in FBI, too. The substance of federal criminal law sometimes duplicates with some of the state criminal law which makes it harder to separate the federal top layer from the state bottom layer. Similar to the situation in European Europol-, the enforcement of the state law is left to the state law enforcement agencies. We know already that Europol does not have any investigative powers, however the attempts to define its competency and the competencies of the states' national law enforcement bodies are worth mentioning.

On the other hand, the application of International Convention for the Suppression of Counterfeiting Currency (Geneva Convention) dated 1929 also gives us some clues concerning the increasing role of Europol, not a direct one though. Further to the article 12 of the mentioned convention stating that "In every country, within the framework of its domestic law, investigations on the subject of counterfeiting should be organized by a central office", Europol is assigned as the European Central Office of the EU, functioning like a regular NCO. As we see here again, the attempts to ascertain Europol as something more than a regular international police cooperation organization are again visible and in practice.

In the sphere of justice and police cooperation in EU, there are very sharp and fast developments as I tried to outline above. With the organizational development of EU and its institutions, the brand-new EU institution of Europol's development also seems to be inevitable. As I also mentioned above, as long as the commercial activities and the movements of persons become more common in EU, generally the regulations and more specifically the council decisions become more and more comprising in the sense that the application of the EU institutions are becoming more like federal state laws, it is out of the question for the moment though. Opposite to the phrase "Europol is NOT an FBI, and not intended to become a comparable instrument of the EU" , as we saw above, with the new council decision and with the developments took place since the establishment of Europol, it become more like FBI, still not something comparable though.

[1] Dr. Willy BRUGGEMAN, "Europol- A European FBI in the making? " 2000
[2] Alexandra De Moor Gert Vermeulen, "Shaping The Competence of Europol. An FBI Perspective" ,2010, p. 77
[3] Vermeulen, a.g.m. p. 78