The EU is tightening up on the powers which may be exerted through a European arrest warrant, to be extended next year when the UK and other members have signed up.
The number of such warrants served on UK visitors to mainland Europe in 2007 was 504, but the Home Office forecast that from next April the number could rise from anywhere between 1,000 and 1,700.
Don't imagine that you are safe because any misdemeanours are small. A Briton, who stole a chicken in a drunken prank while in Eastern Europe, was arrested here and sent back there although he had returned the chicken.
Under the agreement the UK has no choice but to extradite any citizen arrested here on a warrant issued anywhere in the EU, without any forms justifying the arrest. Furthermore the trials could be in foreign languages, and to standards which we would find unacceptable in this country.
The moral seems to be, "Behave yourself, and don't give them any excuse."
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