[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 20413]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 EXTRADITION AGREEMENT WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION (TREATY DOC. NO. 109-14)

To the Senate of the United States:
  With a view to receiving the advice and consent of Senate to 
ratification, I transmit herewith the Agreement on Extradition between 
the United States of America and the European Union (EU), signed on 
June 25, 2003, at Washington, together with 22 bilateral instruments 
that subsequently were signed between the United States and European 
Union Member States in order to implement the Agreement with the EU, 
and an explanatory note that is an integral part of the Agreement. I 
also transmit, for the information of the Senate, the report of the 
Department of State with respect to the Agreement and bilateral 
instruments. The bilateral instruments with three EU Member States, 
Estonia, Latvia, and Malta, take the form of comprehensive new 
extradition treaties, and therefore will be submitted individually.
  A parallel agreement with the European Union on mutual legal 
assistance, together with bilateral instruments, will be transmitted to 
the Senate separately. These two agreements are the first law 
enforcement agreements concluded between the United States and the 
European Union. Together they serve to modernize and expand in 
important respects the law enforcement relationships between the United 
States and the 25 EU Member States, as well as formalize and strengthen 
the institutional framework for law enforcement relations between the 
United States and the European Union itself.
  The U.S.-EU Extradition Agreement contains several provisions that 
should improve the scope and operation of bilateral extradition 
treaties in force between the United States and each EU Member State. 
For example, it requires replacing outdated lists of extraditable 
offenses included in 10 older bilateral treaties with the modern ``dual 
criminality'' approach, thereby enabling coverage of such newer 
offenses as money laundering. Another important provision ensures that 
a U.S. extradition request is not disfavored by an EU Member State that 
receives a competing request for the person from another Member State 
pursuant to the newly created European Arrest Warrant. Finally, the 
Extradition Agreement simplifies procedural requirements for preparing 
and transmitting extradition documents, easing and speeding the current 
process.
  I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to 
the Agreement and bilateral instruments.
                                                        George W. Bush.
The White House, September 28, 2006.

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