Judicial cooperation: exchange programme for legal practitioners, Grotius II general and criminal

PURPOSE : to establish a second phase of the programme of incentives and exchanges, training and cooperation for legal practitioners. COMMUNITY MEASURE : Council Decision 2001/512/JHA establishing a second phase of the programme of incentives and exchanges, training and cooperation for legal practitioners (Grotius II Criminal). CONTENT : this Decision establishes, for general and criminal matters, the second phase of the Grotius cooperation programme. The programme is hereby renewed for the period from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2002. The programme shall contribute to the general objective of provising citizens with a high level of protection in an area of freedom, security and justice. Within this framework, it i intended to stimulate mutual knowledge of legal and judicial systems and to facilitate general judicial and criminal cooperation between the Member States. The specific objectives of the programme are: - a preparation of projects in the field of criminal judical cooperation; - help implementing the instrument adopted; - support for better mutual understanding on general topics of shared interest for the Member States; - local ad hoc projects with the aim of improving cooperation on the ground; - setting up networks between certain organisations and professions. The applicant countries may participate in projects in order to familiarise themselves with the Union acquis in this area and help them prepare for accession. With regard to the financing of the programme, the financial reference amount for the implementation of this programme for the period 2001 to 2002 shall be EUR 4 million. As regards to the implementation of the programme, the Commission shall be responsible for the management and implementation of the programme, in cooperation with the Member States. Lastly, the Commission shall undertake each year an evaluation of the actions carried out in implementing the programme for the previous year. The Commission shall report each year to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the programme. The first report shall be presented before 31 July 2002. ENTRY INTO FORCE : the Decision shall take effect from 07/07/2001. It shall apply until 31 December 2002.�