The European Commissioner for Justice, Věra Jourová, has “received positive reactions" from Member States on the draft negotiating mandate for a transatlantic agreement on electronic evidence, presented on 5 February (see EUROPE 12187). The discussion over lunch at the informal ministerial meeting in Bucharest was essentially a presentation of this mandate and was well received by Member States, although they did not give details or a specific date for adopting this mandate, with the commissioner hoping that negotiations will start "very soon".
In addition to this discussion on electronic evidence, the Ministers of Justice also discussed in the morning the future of judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters, i.e. after 2019. According to Věra Jourová, it was agreed that there would be "no revolution” and that it was necessary to continue working on these things with predictable evolution and useful to people in their daily lives. "We need to do things that make sense to people, facilitate cross-border cooperation, simplify rules for people travelling in the EU”, added the EU official, who also noted that it would no longer be her who would implement these policies in the next Commission. "It won't be me, because my mandate will stop, it will be someone else”, she said at a press conference. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)