On Tuesday 7 November, representatives from the Council of the EU, European Parliament and European Commission will begin “trialogue” talks on reform of the model of governance for Eurojust, the European legal cooperation agency. This follows adoption on 19 October last by MEPs at the civil liberties committee (LIBE) of their position on this question (see EUROPE 11887).
We were informed by one European source close to the dossier that during their meeting on 27 October, representatives from the Council of the EU approved the opening of negotiations. According to our source, the position decided by the European Parliament is relatively close to the one reached by the Council in March 2015 (see EUROPE 11274).
The main changes introduced by the Council in relation to the Commission’s proposal presented in July 2013 (see EUROPE 10890), involve differentiation between the operational functions of the College and its management functions, as well as new provisions on annual and multiannual programming and representation of the Commission on the executive council.
Although the approach reached by the Council excludes the provisions on the European Prosecutor’s Office, as long as discussions on the creation of this new structure have not been finalised (see EUROPE 11882), these provisions will now be examined on the basis of the discussions that had already taken place under the Maltese Presidency.
The Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU has aligned Eurojust’s data protection system on the basis of the data protection reform adopted in 2016 – an approach also sought by the European Parliament.
Our same source explained that the Estonian presidency is hoping to push forward quickly on this dossier and at this stage does not expect any major difficulty. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)