Eurojust: A key factor for the development of judicial cooperation?

Résumé du document

The area of freedom, security and justice of the European Union (EU) is closely linked to the establishment of an internal market within the European Union, especially with the freedom of movement. In this respect, the creation of common rules against transnational criminality became an issue of the utmost importance in the wake of the creation of the Schengen zone. An anti-drugs unit was created in 1995, which later became Europol, an EU agency in charge of criminal cooperation. The need for a judicial cooperation among the Member States became also necessary: Eurojust was created as a means to fighting “effectively against the growing cross-border criminality resulting from globalization and increase of transborder crime”.

Before its formal creation in 2002 by a Council Decision , judicial cooperation within the EU was deemed insufficient as it was organised by “Council of Europe conventional instruments from the 1950s, which were hardly appropriate to the task”. The idea of effective means of achieving judicial cooperation was then put forward within the Union and the success of the cooperation in the Anti-Drugs Unit and then Europol was taken as an example. The idea of Eurojust was developed at the European Council of Tampere on 15th-16th October 1999, which recommended the creation of a body composed of “national prosecutors, magistrates, or police officers of equivalent competence (…) with the task of facilitating the proper coordination of national prosecuting authorities and of supporting criminal investigations in organized crime cases, notably based on Europol's analysis, as well as of coordinating closely with the European judicial network, in particular in order to simplify the execution of letters rogatory”.

Extraits

[...] Eurojust enjoys considerable powers for an intergovernmental body as it can request action from Member States to start investigating or prosecuting a case. Though these requests are not binding, they are generally complied with. The College acts in important cases but most of the work is carried on through the national members who can also exercise the powers conferred on a national level. These national members are “mostly prosecutors”.[13] Basically, Eurojust can act through: its College, its national members and also via national authorities in relation to the sending Member State or in relation to other States by virtue of the national member having kept his statute in the national system. [...]

[...] Eurojust mandate and powers confer it a key role for the European judicial cooperation 1. Eurojust is a unique structure in the world and a key instrument to link national authorities Nadine Thwaites explains that “Eurojust's unique and unprecedented structure represents an important step forward to enhance multilateral co- operation in EU criminal matters”.[10] Indeed, there is no other network in the world sharing comparable powers or purpose. The creation of the unit is seen by Member States as a great step forward in judicial cooperation, “progressively transforming the traditional horizontal and bilateral cooperation into a vertical and multilateral cooperation with focus on coordination”.[11] Eurojust is a key instrument whose tasks are to gather the information available at Member States' level and to coordinate prosecutions and investigation between their competent authorities. [...]

[...] In this respect, Eurojust has proven to be a very effective tool to implement European Arrest Warrants[17]: according to the Annual Report, in 2010, a total of 280 cases concerning the execution of the European Arrest Warrant were registered at Eurojust, amounting to almost 20% of all cases. B. Eurojust appears to be a major step towards a more integrated judicial cooperation 1. Designed as a starting-point for judicial cooperation in Europe, Eurojust has been constantly reinforced In 2002, nobody knew how the unit would function or whether it would be able to achieve the level of trust needed to ensure its existence. [...]

[...] Soon enough, it has been realised that the unit was effective and some changes were necessary to foster its functioning. New steps were taken during the negotiations for the Constitutional and then the Lisbon Treaties, which took into account the need to strengthen Eurojust. The latter introduced new articles and 86 TFEU. The Treaty provides that Eurojust initiate and coordinate criminal investigations and propose to initiate prosecutions led by competent national authorities”.[18] Aside from treaty provisions, a revised Eurojust Decision agreed at the Council in July 2008 was adopted at the end of the French presidency. [...]

[...] The relations with OLAF would be more difficult to handle in the eventuality of the creation of the EPPO as it would be competent in OLAF's prerogatives. Regarding the European Judicial Network, the relations are very good. It is Eurojust's main partner.[38] It is in charge of bilateral cooperation, while Eurojust was conceived first and foremost as a multilateral instrument. The two structures work together, as illustrated by the strengthening of both of them by the new Council decisions[39] adopted on the same day. [...]