At their plenary session on Wednesday 2 April, MEPs approved the agreement to strengthen cooperation in criminal justice matters between the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, Eurojust, and the competent authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The text, adopted by an overwhelming majority of 619 votes in favour, 9 against and 45 abstentions, defines the conditions for cooperation between Eurojust and the Bosnian authorities in criminal prosecutions.
As rapporteur Jaroslav Bžoch (PfE, Czech) put it in a Parliament press release following the vote, the agreement will provide “our authorities with the necessary means to fight serious crime and terrorism, which are very often transnational in nature and extend to countries outside the EU”.
It will strengthen the coordination of investigations and prosecutions, particularly in areas where serious crime is often transnational, such as terrorism, cybercrime, trafficking in human beings, migrant smuggling and money laundering.
The text also provides for the possibility of exchanging classified information in a secure and confidential manner. These exchanges will be strictly governed by compliance with the principle of proportionality, precise rules on data storage and retention periods, and rights of access and rectification for data subjects.
Specific constraints will apply to the processing of sensitive data (ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs).
Bosnia-Herzegovina will also be able to second a liaison prosecutor to Eurojust, based in The Hague. For its part, Eurojust will be able to assign a liaison magistrate to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The agreement also allows for the creation of joint investigation teams between national authorities and EU Member States.
The agreement had already received almost unanimous support in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) on 6 March (see EUROPE 13594/23). It is the result of several years of negotiations.
The discussions, launched after the green light from the Member States in March 2021, culminated in a draft agreement validated at technical level in March 2024. The Commission proposed its formal adoption in July and the EU Council adopted a decision authorising the signature of an agreement last October (https://aeur.eu/f/g8g ).
The EU Council can now confirm its adoption. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)