On Friday 6 May, the representatives of the EU Member States adopted their negotiating mandate for the revision of the Eurojust Regulation. This should enable the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, Eurojust, to store and analyse evidence on war crimes cases. The Commission proposed the revision of the Regulation at the end of April so that Eurojust can best support international investigations taking place in Ukraine (see EUROPE 12938/9).
The Member States have made some changes to the Commission’s text, according to the version adopted by their representatives, a copy of which was made available to EUROPE. They propose, for example, that Eurojust should be able to “preserve, analyse and store evidence”, thus deleting the word “collect”. The European Commission had explained that the collection of evidence did not give Eurojust an enforceable mandate regarding investigations, but only aimed to ensure that the Agency could “receive, centralise and store evidence from different sources”.
They also add that the Regulation does not introduce any obligation for national authorities to share evidence with Eurojust.
The European Parliament must now take a decision, with a view to rapid adoption, as suggested by the Commission and the EU Council (see EUROPE 12941/4).
See the text adopted by the Member States’ representatives: https://aeur.eu/f/1jd (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)