The European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) hosted, on Tuesday 7 November, an Interparliamentary Meeting on the Evaluation of Eurojust’s activities. This session offered a threefold perspective on the annual report and future prospects of the European agency responsible for judicial cooperation, its role in responding to the war in Ukraine and the essential cooperation between Eurojust and Europol. The presentation by Margarita Šniutyte-Daugeliene, Vice-President of Eurojust, provided an in-depth look at the agency, focusing in particular on the measures taken in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine and concerted efforts to investigate war crimes.
Over the past year, Eurojust has organised a series of 20 large-scale coordination meetings for the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), involving Ukraine and six EU Member States - Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia and Romania.
This collaboration, strengthened by the analytical expertise of Europol, which has joined the JIT, aims to gather evidence and develop cases against the perpetrators of crime. “Although the details of ongoing investigations are confidential, we have focused our work on prioritising prosecution strategies and actively building cases”, said the Vice-President of Eurojust.
Ms Šniutyte-Daugeliene also highlighted the progress of the Core International Crimes Evidence Database (CICED), which, with contributions from 13 countries, including Ukraine and the United States, contains more than 1,300 files. The promising links identified through this analytical tool will be fully exploited starting this month, providing essential feedback to contributors and helping to build strong legal cases.
A major point of the speech concerned the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine (ICPA), launched in July (see EUROPE 13214/10). This centre aims to secure essential evidence. Hosted in The Hague, the participating national authorities benefit from tailor-made operational, financial, logistical and technical support.
The ICPA’s working method remains flexible, anticipating various potential national and international jurisdictions, with the translation of evidence and documents into Ukrainian and English, guaranteeing their usefulness in different legal settings.
The Vice-President of Eurojust also mentioned a recent document from the Secretariat of the Genocide Network, which provides a comparative view of the implementation of the investigation of the crime of aggression in the legislation of EU Member States and certain third countries, including Ukraine.
While discussions on the establishment of a dedicated tribunal continue, Eurojust is refraining from taking a position on the form that this future jurisdiction should take. The agency’s priority remains to provide practical support to national judicial authorities investigating crimes of aggression. “We are closely following the discussions on the establishment of a dedicated tribunal. However, it is up to the politicians to decide what form this should take”, said Margarita Šniutyte-Daugeliene. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)