Luxembourg, 29/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - Eurojust dealt with 50% more cases in 2003 but many Member States still make insufficient use of the office, Eurojust President Michael Kennedy said when presenting his 2003 report to EU25 Justice and Home Affairs Ministers. An office for cooperation between European magistrates and prosecutors, intended to facilitate the processing of files involving several Member States, Eurojust began its work end 2002. "Three hundred cases were referred to Eurojust in 2003, which is 50% up compared to 2002", Mr Kennedy told EUROPE. Half of these 300 cases concern drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism, he said. Others relate to the trade in human beings, cyber-crime and pornography.
The Eurojust president, himself a British magistrate, was there to ask ministers to give their representative at the office the necessary powers. Eurojust must be used as it is meant to be by all Member States, he said. On its list of countries lagging behind as far as application of the European legal cooperation decisions are concerned, the European Commission had mainly criticised the delay entailed for Eurojust. It explained that Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Greece, Spain, France and Italy were lagging behind (EUROPE of 27 March, p.6). Since then, France and Austria have adopted the necessary legislation, Mr Kennedy said. The report by Javier Solana on terrorism, published just before the Madrid attacks, also denounced the fact that Member States do not make adequate use of Eurojust (EUROPE of 13 March, p.4).