Brussels, 22/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot announced on Friday 17 July 2009 that he is planning to organise debates about the draft Rome III Regulation on cross-border divorce when the Spanish Presidency takes over the reins of the EU in January 2010. Barrot said after a meeting of EU justice ministers in Stockholm recently that he had met with the Spanish Presidency to look at ways of getting Rome III going again. In June 2008, the Council of the EU suffered a veto from Sweden which prevented it from voting unanimously in favour of the draft Rome III Regulation, after which ten member states sent the Commission a formal request that it make use of “strengthened cooperation” and issue a proposal of this type. If it had done so, this would have been the first such proposal ever. Barrot said he had not ruled anything out, including strengthened cooperation, but had made it a precondition that there must be enough member states to launch such a strengthened cooperation procedure. Failing which, he said, the process would only segment the EU legal area. He said that enough time had to be left for discussions in order to reach as wide an agreement as possible because it is not possible for a small number of countries to force things through in such a domain. In order to avoid use of strengthened cooperation, the Commission recently suggested going back to a compromise agreement drafted under the French Presidency (see EUROPE 9867). The unveiling of new draft legislation has been postponed at the moment to see whether the Lisbon Treaty comes into force.
Gradual progress. At the meeting, EU justice ministers broadly supported the “Stockholm Programme” for EU policy in the domain of justice for the next five years from the citizen's viewpoint, explained Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask. She said the ministers agreed that they should introduce measures which are useful for citizens and which make the lives of individuals and companies easier. She said the EU had already done a lot in this connection but many obstacles remained. During their meeting, the justice ministers discussed the option of using video conferencing in court hearings, use of the EU e-justice portal and increasing cooperation with countries outside the EU. The ministers said that the current crisis should not lead to a slimming down of member states' justice budgets. The Swedish justice minister hailed the Commission's promise to publish its draft legislation on inheritance in October 2009. The rights in court of people arrested or questioned in another EU country is another important issue that was discussed by the politicians. This is not the first time that this issue, and other cross-border procedural law matters, have been discussed but EU member states have never been able to agree on anything. Beatrice Ask said that for this reason, the Swedish Presidency had decided not to try and make progress on all issues at once, but to take them one by one, starting with interpreting and translation. Barrot said people had to be sure that justice would be done no matter where they were living in the EU, and this required mutual recognition and an approximation of procedural law and material law, in other words a definition of the most serious crimes. At the meeting, several ministers stressed the need to assess the impact of current legislation rather than issuing new legislation. Ask explained that not all member states used the European Arrest Warrant and the reasons for this should be looked into. Barrot added that judges do not know how to use it, which is why the Commission wants to give them training courses. The commissioner said he had been granted the option of assessing legal systems to compare and contrast the time a trial takes in the different member states. Negotiations on the Stockholm Programme will continue in the autumn.
Departure of Luc Frieden. After 11 years in his job, Luxembourg's justice minister, 45-year old Luc Frieden, announced at the meeting that it was his last EU Justice and Home Affairs Council. He said that as a long-term Council member, he had reminded his colleagues of the importance of keeping a long-term view of things, like the need for an EU Criminal Code for serious crimes and procedural rules to make people equal before EU member states' courts. He called for rules to harmonise conflicts in civil law and for greater clarity in contract law to help boost freedom of movement and the free movement of goods. Frieden said this all required better understanding of the legal system of other member states and better understanding of EU law. Training should therefore be a priority, he argued. On Monday 20 July 2009, Luc Frieden became Luxembourg's finance minister, taking over from the Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker. (B.C./ transl.fl)