Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) gave their green light on Wednesday 8 July to the amendment to Council implementing decision 2018/1696 on the operating rules of the selection panel of European prosecutors (see EUROPE 12516/10).
The amendment proposed by the Commission aims, on an exceptional basis, to allow the selection panel to present a reasoned opinion to the Council on only two eligible candidates, where it is sufficiently established that it is impossible for a Member State to find a third eligible candidate within a reasonable period of time, due to exceptional circumstances.
The formation of the College of European Public Prosecutors of the European Public Prosecutor's Office was indeed delayed because of Malta's difficulties in appointing three candidates meeting the conditions of experience and independence (see EUROPE 12499/13).
Some technical changes to the Commission's proposal are nevertheless to be noted in the text. In particular, the Council specified that “the selection panel should make use of this possibility only if a candidate withdraws his/her nomination or has been found ineligible by the selection panel and where that Member State had already nominated a new candidate at least once before”.
The text still has to be formally adopted by written procedure. It can be consulted at the following page: https://bit.ly/2Z98B9g (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)