The Council of the EU wants to draw lessons from the Covid-19 crisis for the future of judicial cooperation. This is stated in a note from the Presidency of the Council of the EU dated 29 June, of which EUROPE has a copy.
Since mid-March, the Croatian Presidency of the EU Council together with Eurojust and the European Judicial Network (EJN) have been collecting information from Member States on the impact of Covid-19 on judicial cooperation in criminal matters (see EUROPE 12480/5).
On this basis, the note submits a series of questions for consideration at the Working Party on Cooperation in Criminal Matters (COPEN) on 9 July. The Presidency would like to know in which areas Member States have encountered difficulties due to a lack of digitisation and in particular whether judges and prosecutors have been able to maintain their workflow at a distance.
The institution also asked whether there were any legal or practical limits to digital work in the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
The note also looks at the emergency coordination measures that have been taken. The Presidency further asked whether the creation of a "working party on informal urgent actions" would be an option worth exploring.
Such a working party could be composed of five members representing the Presidency, the Council Secretariat, the Commission, Eurojust and the EJN. It would be responsible only for coordinating the initial actions in order to be able to react quickly and avoid duplication of effort, the note says.
Future of the European Arrest Warrant coordination group
In a second note, dated 29 June and copied to EUROPE, the Presidency takes stock of initial experiences in the framework of the European Arrest Warrant coordination group, set up by the Commission to assist Member States in the implementation of this instrument during the pandemic (see EUROPE 12462/7), in cooperation with Eurojust, the EJN and the Secretariat-General of the Council of the EU.
The work of the group started as an e-mail contact group, to which the JHA criminal law advisers were added. The group was invited, inter alia, to answer questions on the application of the 2016 Petruhhin case law of the EU Court of Justice, the note says.
While the need for this group was identified during the pandemic, the Commission has suggested that in the longer term the group could serve as a platform for sharing knowledge on the European Arrest Warrant, for example by organising research projects, conferences and new initiatives.
The Presidency therefore invites the working party to discuss the need to formalise the rules on the composition and tasks of the group and the possibility of extending it to other instruments of judicial cooperation. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)