Ensuring effective, speedy and fair European justice, improving the business environment and safeguarding family rights are the priorities in the justice domain for the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU from 1 January to 30 June 2018.
Bulgaria is one of the 20 member states behind the creation of the European Prosecutor’s Office and in its programme, the Bulgarian Presidency commits to working as a priority on institutionalising and bringing this new body on stream in 2020, which will be responsible for tackling fraud in EU funding and cross-border VAT (see EUROPE 11882). The Bulgarian Presidency will focus on the establishment of relations with partner institutions and services, including Eurojust, Europol and OLAF, non-EU nations and international organisations.
In the domain of family rights, Sofia will focus mainly on adopting a revised version of the Brussels II regulation on the competence, recognition and implementation of decisions on marriage, parental responsibility and the removal of children to other countries. This is a vast subject which, at the last ministerial meeting in December, was still a matter of division among the member states (see EUROPE 11923). The presidency has given itself the target of bringing member states’ views close together in order to settle the key issues in the revised version.
The new presidency wants to drive forward the proposal on fraud and the counterfeiting of payment methods other than cash, which was unveiled in September 2017 (see EUROPE 11865), by drawing up a general approach.
When it comes to interinstitutional negotiations, the presidency wants to launch trilogue talks "constructively" on a number of items of draft legislation, including the draft directive on tackling money laundering through criminal law (see EUROPE 11925); - the draft regulation revisiting a mutual recognition mechanism for decisions to freeze and confiscate criminal assets (see EUROPE 11922); - the draft regulation to set up an ECRIS-TCN system to rapidly verify whether a member state holds information on the criminal records of a non-EU national (see EUROPE 11922). It will also pursue the talks that are already in an advanced state on reforming Eurojust’s governance model (see EUROPE 11929).
Taking over from the Estonian Presidency that has been widely described as a "digital presidency", Sofia is planning to launch in-depth talks on drawing up a new EU strategy for e-justice for 2019-2023. It also hopes to hold a structured debate on the European Commission’s proposal on cross-border access for electronic proof, which is due to come on stream on 24 January 2018 (see EUROPE 11929).
Finally, particular attention will be paid under the Bulgarian Presidency to the drawing up and maintenance of the e-Codex platform, which was launched in March as a common mechanism for the exchange of standardised and protected cross-border information between member states in legal proceedings.
An informal meeting of European justice ministers will take place in Sofia on 26 January. The first formal meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council will take place on 8 and 9 March. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)