The Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) will on Wednesday 25 September endorse the EU Council's conclusions on the resources of the European Judicial Cooperation Agency, Eurojust, in the digital age.
The draft conclusions focus on the improvement of information exchange and ensuring interoperability between EU information systems, so that links can be established between different criminal investigations.
The conclusions pay particular attention to the proper functioning of Eurojust's Case Management System (CMS). They note that the current system is rather old and does not properly support the exchange of information. "Eurojust should therefore look at ways to improve and modernise its CMS, taking into account interoperability with existing solutions or solutions that are being built", say the Member States.
However, the EU Council recognizes that the implementation of such improvements requires "appropriate human and financial resources".
It should be noted that the text addresses the relationship between Eurojust and the future European Public Prosecutor's Office, which should be operational in 2020. "Eurojust is likely to play an important role in the work of the EPPO, in particular in the early stages of the latter", the text stresses. The EU Council therefore calls for a working arrangement between the European Public Prosecutor's Office and Eurojust to be established as soon as possible.
The conclusions also mention the entry into force on 12 December 2019 of the reform of Eurojust's governance model (see EUROPE 12044/3), which should enable it to increase its effectiveness, and highlight the importance of improving synergies between Eurojust and the other judicial cooperation networks in criminal matters (see EUROPE 12259/7).
The conclusions will be formally adopted by the European Ministers of Justice on 7 October in Luxembourg. See the draft text: http://bit.ly/2kqDRPA (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)