Italy accepts European arrest warrant

Italy has abandoned its opposition to a new European arrest warrant that would make extradition for some offences automatic within the EU.

But the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, said that Italy would have to change its constitution to accommodate the measure, indicating a possible delay in its implementation.

"Italy accepts the European arrest warrant as defined at a meeting of justice and interior ministers on December 6th. Other nations have set 2004 as a date for implementing this accord and we expect a date sometime around there for us ... although it could be after that," he said.

Italy's dramatic reversal of policy came during a visit to Rome yesterday by the Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt, who will chair a meeting of EU leaders on Friday.

Italy's misgivings about the warrant, which received the support of all other EU member-states last week, left it diplomatically isolated.

Some commentators suggested that Italy's reluctance to adopt the warrant was linked to allegations of financial irregularities against Mr Berlusconi which are under investigation in Spain.

Italian ministers said they feared that foreign magistrates might meddle in domestic affairs without any political mechanisms in place to guard against an over-zealous judiciary.

They pointed out that Italian magistrates are obliged to pursue every alleged wrongdoing and suggested that the broad scope of the warrant could lead to chaos.

Italy originally wanted to reduce the 32 offences covered by the warrant, which include fraud and racketeering as well as terrorism, to just six.

But massive diplomatic pressure appears to have forced yesterday's reversal, which Mr Verhofstadt welcomed enthusiastically.

"I'm very happy that Italy along with the rest of the other EU members has accepted the arrest warrant as presented and defined by the ministers," he said.

But Mr Berlusconi warned that, despite yesterday's announcement, it is not yet certain that Italy will adopt the warrant.

"If we can't change the constitution, then we will remain outside this agreement, just as Britain and others have remained outside the euro, for example," he said.

In a related move, the EU has reinforced early warning systems to meet the risk of terrorists using biological, chemical or nuclear weapons and stocked up on antidotes.

Among other measures agreed by EU justice ministers are an exchange of information between the fledgling police agency Europol and US law enforcement on terrorism and other serious crimes.

"Our day-to-day experience in working with the EU on law enforcement issues since September 11th has been very positive," one US diplomat said.

"We have come a long way in a short time in creating new means to fight serious crime and terrorism."