The European Ministers of Justice will not meet in Luxembourg on Friday 9 October as had been envisaged for a while, but by videoconference, due to the health conditions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. They will address, in particular, the digitisation of judicial systems, the fight against child sexual abuse and antisemitism.
The conclusions on the opportunities offered by digitisation in the field of access to justice, which were originally intended to be adopted at the meeting, will finally only be presented by the German EU Council Presidency due to the videoconference format. According to a European source, the Presidency was nevertheless keen to deal with this point at ministerial level, as it is one of its main priorities (see EUROPE 12552/12).
The last open point concerned Poland’s request to replace the term “gender equality” with “equality between women and men” (see EUROPE 12570/6).
The issue was discussed at the meeting of Member States’ Ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) on Monday 5 and Wednesday 7 October, but could not be fully resolved. According to our information, in order to overcome the deadlock, a new proposal for a text has been made which could be acceptable to a majority of delegations; it will be discussed by ministers on Friday.
The rest of the text, on the other hand, is the subject of consensus. It encourages Member States to make greater use of digital tools throughout judicial proceedings and calls on the Commission to develop a comprehensive EU strategy on the digitisation of justice by the end of 2020 (see EUROPE 12525/21).
AI. Poland has reportedly made the same request on another text which will also be presented by the Presidency on Friday, namely draft conclusions on the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital transition.
However, the discussions on this text are likely to be more complicated, since the disagreement between Member States persisted at the Coreper meeting on Wednesday and no new proposals have reportedly been made.
The draft document seen by EUROPE stresses the need to tackle “challenges such as opacity, complexity, bias, a certain degree of unpredictability and partially autonomous behaviour in order to ensure the compatibility of automated systems with fundamental rights and to facilitate the application of legal rules”.
It stresses the importance of the principles of equality and non-discrimination in the design, development, deployment, use and evaluation of AI, in particular in systems incorporating machine learning, and of ensuring that such systems are subject to adequate safeguards and oversight, “including market surveillance”.
On the delicate issue of mass surveillance, it took note of the debate on possible bans. “If such systems were to be used, the EU Council recognises that clear legal criteria should be formulated in advance”, notes the draft text.
If the deadlock were to persist, the German Presidency could decide to transform the text into simple Presidency conclusions. The two draft conclusions will in any case have to be formally adopted at a forthcoming formal EU Council meeting or by written procedure.
Sexual abuse. The Commission will then present its new strategy, unveiled in July, to better combat child sexual abuse (see EUROPE 12535/1).
While the strategy falls broadly within the remit of the Ministers of the Interior, it also contains certain aspects that are the responsibility of the Ministers of Justice, such as prevention and victim protection, explains the German Presidency in a note copied to EUROPE.
In particular, ministers will be invited to share their experience of the removal of child pornography images in their countries and to reflect on how child victims might be able to request and ensure the removal of such content.
They will also be asked to give their views on the Commission’s commitment to present binding legislation on the removal of such material online in 2021 and its proposal that in the meantime platforms should continue to remove such content on a voluntary basis.
Antisemitism. Ministers will also exchange views with the director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Michael O’Flaherty, on ways to improve the criminal justice response to antisemitism and to encourage victims, Jewish communities and civil society organisations to report antisemitic incidents.
Discussions will also focus on the urgent need to improve the recording and collection of data on antisemitism. The FRA has recently made a worrying assessment in this respect (see EUROPE 12557/27) in a report compiling data on antisemitism recorded in the 27 Member States, the United Kingdom, North Macedonia and Serbia.
In particular, the report reveals that some EU states have no official data. It also indicates that less than half of the victims of antisemitic violence report incidents to the police or any other organisation.
Electronic evidence. The German Presidency will also inform the ministers of the progress of the legislative proposals to facilitate cross-border access to electronic evidence (see EUROPE 12439/9), which have been blocked in the European Parliament for 2 years now and have been further delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic (see EUROPE 12462/17). Technical meetings at the European Parliament could not resume until September.
For its part, the European Commission will take stock of international negotiations between the US and the EU to conclude an agreement on cross-border access to electronic evidence (see EUROPE 12376/12) and negotiations in the Council of Europe on a second additional protocol to the Budapest Convention.
‘Schrems II’ ruling. The Commission will also follow up with ministers on the ‘Schrems II’ ruling of 16 July (see EUROPE 12529/2), which invalidates the ‘Privacy Shield’, the data protection shield between the EU and the US.
European Public Prosecutor’s Office. The Commission will also hold its traditional information point on the state of play of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, in the presence of the Chief Prosecutor, Laura Codruța Kövesi.
It will in particular inform the ministers on staff recruitment and, above all, on the progress of discussions on the number of deputy European public prosecutors required for each Member State (see EUROPE 12570/7).
Finally, at the request of Lithuania, ministers will be invited to discuss whether the EU could take measures to facilitate the transfer of prisoners sentenced in non-Member States, who are EU citizens, to their home Member State. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana, Sophie Petitjean and Agathe Cherki)