Monitoring the application of Community law. 18th annual report 2000, 19th annual report 2001

This document consists of the report on the implementation of the Robert Schuman Project 1999-2001. The Robert-Schuman project has been in force for the years 1999-2001, with the objective of encouraging and supporting initiatives designed to raise awareness of the Community law among the legal professions in the member States. By raising the awareness of this law among the judges and lawyers of national jurisdictions, the overall aim of the Project was to gradually improve the application, throughout the Union, of Community law. This report is in response to the obligation of the Commission to report on the implementation of the Project. The report shows that with a total of 180 initiatives supported over the course of five years and over EUR 3.5 million spent in support of these initiatives the Robert-Schuman Project, and the Pilot Phase that preceded it, must be considered to have had an impact on the awareness of Community law among the legal professions in the European union. This conclusion is confirmed also by the number of beneficiaries who indicate that they intend to continue with initiatives designed to provide training and information on Community law in the future. Although an assessment to the true impact on the actual application of Community law throughout the European union falls outside the scope of this report; it can safely be assumed that an important contribution has been made towards this end. The Project can therefore be considered to have met its objectives - to provide a time-limited boost for the training of the legal professions in Community law, while respecting the competence of the Member States to organise and carry out vocational training. In view of the above and the steady downward trends in application, further Community intervention in this area is no longer justified. This conclusion follows also from the Commission's line, in the context of the financial reform, to move away from the management of micro-projects. More focussed support for training actions will continue to be available in the framework of the different cooperation programmes in the field of Justice and Home Affairs.�