The judicial authorities of the EU Member States turned increasingly to Eurojust for support in investigating serious cross-border crime and terrorism in 2020. This is one of the findings in Eurojust’s annual report, which was presented to the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) on Tuesday 23 March.
Despite restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the agency continued to operate fully (see EUROPE 12461/16), seeing 13% more cases registered last year, i.e a total of more than 8,800, which reflects the increasing level of complexity of cross-border criminal investigations.
In 2020, judicial cooperation through Eurojust led to the arrest of 2,209 suspects, the freezing of €1.9 billion in criminal assets and the seizure of drugs worth €3 billion.
Eurojust is dealing with a total of 164 cases directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic, either because of difficulties in executing European arrest warrants and European investigation decisions because borders are closed, or because of fraud related to the sale of masks and protective gels, for example (see EUROPE 12464/19).
In 2020, Eurojust also had to adjust how it worked. Particularly important was the decision to give the agency permission to make decisions via videoconference in exceptional circumstances such as the Covid-19 pandemic (see EUROPE 12533/22).
The report can be found at: http://bit.ly/39ail86 (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)