Brussels, 17/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - Despite the growing usefulness of Eurojust, the European judicial cooperation office, EU member states are still reluctant to cooperate fully with it. This was partly the conclusion reached by European Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini and Eurojust President Michael Kennedy, who celebrated the fifth anniversary of the creation of the office, based in The Hague, on Tuesday. “Eurojust is gaining strength”, said Frattini, stressing that the cap of 1,000 cases brought to the attention of Eurojust by member states would be reached in 2007. In his view, 771 cases were brought before the office in 2006, already up 31% compared to 2005. Eurojust members - lawyers, magistrates, prosecutors and judges from all EU countries - have recently received the support of an American representative thanks to an agreement sealed with the FBI at the end of 2006. A cooperation agreement with Norway has also been signed and talks will soon begin with a view to reaching cooperation with Croatia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). The priorities of teams working for Eurojust focus on coordinating the fight against terrorism, serial killers, child pornography, organised crime, as well as the smuggling of people and drugs. The commissioner called, moreover, for better cooperation between Eurojust and OLAF as well as between Eurojust and Europol, the European Police Office, mainly through joint investigation teams.
“We need to improve the quantity and the quality of information coming from member states to Eurojust”, said Mr Frattini, adding that current cooperation is far from being “completely satisfactory”. The president of Eurojust did not refute what the commissioner had said, adding: “We can still do much more”. Although he did not name them, he went on to criticise the member states that are reluctant about putting cases to Eurojust through fear of seeing their confidential information end up in unsafe hands. This is often the case of the large EU countries.
In order to make the situation move on, Mr Frattini undertook to present a communication this autumn on the future of Eurojust and the European Judicial Network. On the matter of Eurojust's future, he specified that he intended to review the legal base in a way that would harmonise the skills and powers of member state representatives. He finally announced his intention to launch discussions under the next EU presidency on Eurojust's long term strategy, including the creation of a European prosecutor's office, an idea that has so far been refused by many member states. (bc)