Caroline Flint: EU members are tackling common threats

European leaders, meeting in Brussels, will today endorse the EU's justice and home affairs work programme for the next five years.

The meeting will set the direction for international work on counter terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration.

The importance of working together with our European partners to tackle common threats and increase everyone's security cannot be overstated. We are talking about international problems that can't be solved by national governments acting alone.

Terrorists and organised criminals don’t respect national borders, nor do illegal immigrants. So it makes sense for the countries concerned to co-ordinate their efforts and pool their expertise.

We know that co-operation works and brings us real benefits. The UK gained a great deal from the last justice and home affairs work programme. Co-operation in Europe has helped us tackle abuse of our asylum system.

The EU now has a European fingerprint database which allows countries to identify asylum seekers that have already claimed asylum elsewhere in the EU. These arrangements are working well, and the UK has returned an average of 150 "asylum shoppers" a month this year.

At the same time, deployment in continental Europe of detection technology and UK immigration controls has contributed to a cut in asylum applications of 70 per cent since October 2002.

It makes sense for Europe's police forces and judicial authorities to work together as well, and the EU can help them do so. Co-operation makes it easier to bring offenders to justice, wherever they may hide.

The new European Arrest Warrant has cut down on lengthy extradition procedures and at least 16 arrests have now been made in EU countries under warrants requested by the UK. Europol, a European agency that collects and analyses criminal intelligence, has contributed to a number of prosecutions. In 2003, it supported member states on a large scale anti-child pornography operation which led to the identification of 59 suspects.

But more can be done and the new work programme will speed further progress. Throughout the process of writing the programme, the UK pressed for a strong focus on practical co-operation, and that is what we got.

The programme will contain proposals to improve the security of European travel documents, a key priority for the UK in the fight against terrorism and organised crime. It will also seek to improve the exchange of intelligence between European police forces, which should make it easier to bring international criminals to justice - another UK priority.

While the programme will respect member states' different legal systems, it will propose that there should be light minimum standards in criminal procedural law. This should help ensure a fair deal for British citizens abroad. For example, if a British person were arrested in another European country, the minimum standards would ensure they got access to legal advice, interpretation and basic standards of justice.

The new programme should also make it easier for UK citizens to travel and do business abroad. Over 50 per cent of Britain's trade in goods and services is with the rest of the EU and around 30 million visits a year are made by UK citizens to other EU countries. It's important that these people have access to the courts and can enforce debts and contracts, without getting tangled up in additional bureaucracy just because there is a cross-border element to their claim.

A great deal of attention has been given to the move to qualified majority voting (QMV) for EU asylum and immigration measures.

The UK has in fact been one of the leading supporters of a move to QMV because in an EU of 25 members, it's simply common sense. We need to take decisions efficiently and implement them promptly.

We believe it makes sense to co-operate with our partners, but in immigration and asylum matters we will only have to participate when we opt in. And we will not opt in where there would be a threat to our national interests. This is the best of both worlds.

To secure benefits at home, we must act internationally. This work programme puts us at the centre of European co-operation whilst preserving our national interests. It is a good result for the UK and a good result for the EU.