Strengthening of Eurojust. Initiative Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden

PURPOSE: initiative of Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Sweden with a view to strengthen Eurojust and amend Decision 2002/187/JHA.

PROPOSED ACT: Council Decision.

BACKGROUND: Eurojust was set up by Decision 2002/187/JHA (seeCNS/2000/0817) as a body with legal personality to stimulate and improve coordination and cooperation between competent judicial authorities of the Member States. After more than 5 years, it is time to assess the experience gained by Eurojust and further to enhance its operational effectiveness by taking account of that experience. The time has come to ensure that Eurojust becomes more operational and that the status of national members is approximated.

CONTENT: this proposal makes provision for the following:

- the setting up of an Emergency Coordination Cell within Eurojust in order to make Eurojust available around the clock and enable it to intervene in urgent cases. The ECC will be composed of one representative per Member State, who may be the national member, his or her deputy, or an assistant entitled to replace the national member. The ECC will be contactable and able to act on an around the clock basis;

- Eurojust national coordination systems will set up in Member States to coordinate the work carried out by the national correspondents for Eurojust, the national correspondent for terrorism matters, the national correspondent for the European Judicial Network, other contact points of the European Judicial Network and representatives in the Network for Joint Investigation Teams and of the Networks set up by Decision 2002/494/JHA(war crime networks), Decision 2007/845/JHA  (asset recovery offices) and by any forthcoming decision on a contact point network against corruption;

- the issues of duplication of efforts and clarification of the division of work between Eurojust and the European Judicial Network need to be resolved, while maintaining the specificity of the European Judicial Network. While maintaining its specificity as a network and its national and operational capacities, the European Judicial Network will be able to draw on the Community budget for operational expenses;

- Eurojust's capacity to work with external partners, such as third countries, Europol, OLAF and FRONTEX will be strengthened;

- lastly, provision will be made for Eurojust to second liaison magistrates to third countries.