The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) “remains a successful mechanism with shorter surrender procedures and almost 15,000 warrants issued in 2021”, said the European Commission in a press release on Thursday 20 July.
In 2021, the Member States’ judicial authorities issued a total of 14,789 EAWs, slightly fewer than in previous years (15,938 in 2020, 20,226 in 2019 and 17,471 in 2018). From the day of arrest, the surrender procedure took an average of 20.14 days when the requested person consented and 53.72 days when they did not, compared with 21.26 and 72.45 days respectively in 2020.
“Moreover, 5,144 persons were effectively surrendered. The most commonly identified categories were theft offences and criminal damage (2,162 EAWs), drug offences (1,741 EAWs) and fraud and corruption (1,278 EAWs)”.
Three distinct categories can be observed among the 22 States that provided statistics: 13 countries issued significantly more EAWs for prosecution purposes, five Member States issued significantly more EAWs for the execution of a sentence or detention order and four others issued EAWs in relatively equal proportions for both purposes, according to the Commission’s working document.
Link to the statistics: https://aeur.eu/f/86j (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)