Mémoire
| Résumé : | This paper offers an insight into how police forces across Europe cooperate with each other against organized crime. Whilst there already exists a considerable amount of research on Europol, cooperation around counterterrorism and intelligence sharing, little attention has been paid to the tools at the disposal of police officers for information exchange across borders. This paper uses documents but dominantly interviews with members of the Luxembourgish Police to discuss information exchange for police work in the EU. Through the neo-functionalist concept of spill-over this paper describes what police cooperation looks like today and how it achieved these levels. Organized crime in the EU and the Luxembourgish Police are looked at before moving on to Europol, the Schengen Agreement, and its compensatory measures for police work. The Schengen Information System (SIS II) and the police and customs cooperation centres (PCCC) are thoroughly discussed as well as how police officers use them. Here the concepts of bureaucratic resistance and bureaucratic culture help us explain the dynamics found amongst police officers from different Member States who must work together daily. The analysis of the interviews supported by official documents reveals that even though the systems and mechanisms in place for information exchange are complex, there is no discernible bureaucratic resistance amongst police officers. The actors of police cooperation do not shy away from using the systems available to them even if some hurdles, such as national bureaucracy, persist. This research revealed that police officers, form personal relationships with each other to which they then revert to when information is quickly needed. These relationships are mainly fostered during events organised throughout the year by Europol. Police officers get the opportunity to develop their skills during these events and meet colleagues from other Member States. Finally, we find that smaller scale agreements are preferred by police officers. The example of the quadrilateral PCCC between Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg illustrates how effective regional cooperation on police matters can be. Both the informal relationships and smaller scale agreements foster amongst EU police officers a transnational professional culture. These relationships lead to a bureaucratic culture in the EU that smoothens formal and informal cooperation amongst police officers from different Member States. |
