Police and customs cooperation centres and their role in EU internal security governance

Abstract

Police and Customs Cooperation Centres (PCCCs) have been established throughout the Schengen area as an important institution reinforcing mechanisms and procedures of cross-border law enforcement cooperation. Since the first PCCC became operational in Offenburg in 1999, about 40 centres have emerged, performing various functions and tasks in the area of internal security and law enforcement and constituting a valuable local tool of direct cross-border cooperation. In the reflection period preceding the 2009 Stockholm Programme, the so-called Future Group (High Level Advisory Group on EU Internal Security) suggested that the EU should establish a model of PCCC applicable to all member states and serving as ‘real police-customs centres of crisis management capable of handling events on an international scale.’ This chapter seeks to verify the above proposal and to reflect further on the importance of PCCCs for internal security of the EU and for cross-border cooperation in the Schengen zone. Several PCCCs will be analysed in order to extract similarities and differences as functional and institutional prerequisites for the elaboration of a framework PCCC. The evaluation of the role that PCCCs perform in everyday cross-border police cooperation will be juxtaposed with new instruments of Schengen governance, adopted in October 2013, particularly new provisions on common rules on the temporary reintroduction of border control at internal borders.