Dresden, 17/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday the German presidency indicated that EU ministers of justice wanted to connect up legal electronic networks between Member States rather than implement European level data centralisation. On 16 January the German minister of justice, Brigitte Zypries, declared during the final press conference of the informal JHA Council that, “The aim should therefore be coordination and networking among the individual Member States' systems, which will continue to be operated in a decentralised manner”. Zypries also appealed for the decision-framework involving the inter-connection of national legal cases to move forward, based on the example of the programme that has already existed since 2006 in German, France, Spain, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg. Ministers of justice have agreed to set up a group for developing standards in the justice sector network in Europe. In this context, the Commissioner for justice, Franco Frattini, announced the release of €14 million for promoting justice projects at national and European levels. According to Frattini, this budget will be for improving communication between the national electronic systems and developing a European portal. A “Work on E-Justice” conference will be held on 29-31 May in Brussels on subjects that will include the European justice portal, cross border communication between the different parties in legal procedures, the exchange of information between the national legal approaches and procedures for European standards. (bc)