On Tuesday 19 November, the European Commission recommended that the EU Council mandate it to negotiate agreements between the EU and Algeria, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey on the subject of cooperation between Eurojust and these countries’ competent judicial authorities.
The Commission says that these countries have been selected on the basis of EU judicial cooperation agency’s operational needs. The Commission said that, in actual fact, EU candidate or potential candidate countries were given priority, as were countries which may have a significant impact on European security for geographical reasons, such as countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Another element that the Commission took into account when selecting countries is the consistency in relations between EU agencies and the non-Member States concerned. The Commission plans to conclude agreements on behalf of Europol with eight of the ten countries mentioned.
Eurojust already has cooperation agreements allowing the exchange of personal data with Montenegro, Ukraine, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, North Macedonia, the United States, Iceland, Norway, Georgia, Albania and Serbia.
The recommendation can be found at: https://bit.ly/36Vhztp (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)