TheStockholm Programme was a five-year plan with guidelines forjustice andhome affairs of themember states of the European Union for the years 2010 through 2014. It had been prepared by the SwedishPresidency of the Council of the European Union for its informal meeting held on 15-17 July 2009, and was named after the place of its publication (Stockholm, the capital ofSweden). After decisions-making by the ministers of the interior and the ministers for justice on 1 December 2009, it was presented to theEuropean Council on 10th and 11th of that month for the final referendum on its summit in Brussels.
After theTampere Programme of 1999 and theHague Programme of 2004, the Stockholm Programme was the third programme covering the areas of freedom, security and justice adopted by the states of theEuropean Union.
The programme contains guidelines for a common politics on the topics of protection of fundamental rights, privacy,minority rights and rights of groups of people in need of special protection, as well as acitizenship of the European Union. In the programme there are also plans for a new European security architecture through the extension of cooperation in the areas of police, military and secret services and measures in the area of border-crossing data exchange between state authorities and surveillance of the internet.
It touches a variety of policy areas includinghomeland andpublic security,migration (theEuropean pact on immigration and asylum), the combat againstorganized crime, personaldata protection,[1]family law,private law,inheritance law and others.
There is supposed to be expansion ofEuropol andEurojust, the establishing of interoperability of police databases, a centralisedresident register, improvedsatellite surveillance, joineddeportation planes and flights, newrefugee camps outside the EU territory, usage of the military against immigration, police intervention outside of EU territory, expansion of theEuropean Gendarmerie Force and intensified cooperation of secret services, etc..
The Stockholm Programme also includes support for the ongoingPrague Process, stating that the memory oftotalitarian crimes "must be a collective memory, shared and promoted, where possible, by us all", and emphasizing that "the Union is an area of shared values, values which are incompatible with crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, including crimes committed by totalitarian regimes".[2]