Brussels - European Union interior and justice ministers are set to push for more citizens' rights and better EU coordination on law enforcement when they meet in Stockholm on Thursday to discuss the bloc's latest five-year justice plan. "One of the first duties of the state is to protect its citizens. Without security, there can be no freedom for European citizens," a briefing letter from the Swedish government, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, says.
"But neither can there be security for citizens if protection is provided while disregarding certain individual rights," the paper says.
In 1999, the EU founded a five-year working programme aimed at improving the way the bloc's member states worked together on legal and judicial issues. The programme was updated and launched for another five years in 2004.
EU ministers are now set to spend six months debating what issues should be involved in the third five-year plan - dubbed the Stockholm Programme - for approval by EU leaders in December.
Under Sweden's leadership, the debate is set to focus on the best way of balancing the need to protect citizens from external threats such as crime, terrorism and illegal migration with the need to protect them from excessive severity by their own governments.
Thursday's informal meeting is set to open with a discussion of the overall strategy for EU internal security in the next five years.
The Swedish briefing paper asks ministers to say what they think the main security priorities should be, how the bloc should work with its neighbours to realise those priorities, and how it should manage the massive flows of security information passing round the bloc.
On June 24 the EU's executive, the European Commission, proposed laws to create a European agency to manage the bloc's databases on visa, travel and fingerprinting issues.
On Thursday afternoon the debate is set to turn to the question of migration, which has become one of the hottest issues in the EU in recent years.
Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Malta have seen record numbers of illegal migrants from Africa and the Middle East reaching their shores, and are demanding that other EU states help.
But their EU colleagues are reluctant to accept the transfer of any migrants, since this would be politically explosive at home.
The Swedish paper asks ministers to suggest ways of cracking down on illegal migration while supporting legal migrants, asylum-seekers and EU member states whose asylum systems cannot cope with the number of applications they receive.
On Friday, ministers are set to debate how their countries can improve cooperation between their justice systems on issues such as cross-border criminal cases, inheritances and marriages.
