On 20 February 2019, the 40th Regular meeting of the European Judicial Network (EJN) took place in The Hague, under the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU. The meeting gathered around 65 participants - EJN Contact Points from the EU Member States as well as from the EJN Candidate and Associated countries. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Florin-Razvan Radu, Justice and Home Affairs Counsellor, EJN National Correspondent for Romania and Mr Ola Löfgren, Secretary to the EJN.
Mr. Radu presented the priorities of the Romanian Presidency in the justice area - the ongoing work on the Draft Directive on laying down harmonised rules on the appointment of legal representatives for gathering evidence in criminal proceedings, the application of the instruments of mutual recognition, the establishment of the EPPO and the strengthening of the cooperation between the EJN, other EU networks and Eurojust.
Mr. Radu and Mr. Löfgren presented the EJN Priorities and informed the Contact points about the main discussion points of the EJN Presidency Board meeting and the joint meeting of the EJN Presidency Board and Eurojust. A presentation of changes with regards to the organization of EJN Plenary meetings took place due to a proposal from Eurojust made on the basis of a cost reduction plan for the meetings of the Networks secretariats. The Eurojust President, Administrative Director and the Head of Operational Department, participated in this part of the meeting. The EJN Contact Points presented their position on the proposed measures.
During the meeting the Contact Points discussed various operational topics related to the application of legal instruments such as the EIO, EAW and other mutual recognition instruments. Furthermore, the Contact Points discussed the main topics and conclusions that came out from the 50th and 51st Plenary meetings of the EJN.
The 40th Regular meeting of the EJN also addressed a number of topics related to the EJN on institutional level including initial discussions on the future relations between the EJN and the EPPO. The Contact Points exchanged information on the current state of play of selection of the representatives of their countries and also ideas on the future cooperation between the EJN and the EPPO.
Mr. Radu, introduced a priority of the Romanian Presidency to improve the cooperation between the EJN, the Genocide Network, the JITs Network and the European Judicial Cybercrime Network, and between these networks and Eurojust. He informed the Contact Points about the initiative of the Romanian Presidency to ask the EU networks and Eurojust to produce a Joint Note on the cooperation between them and possibilities for improvements.
During the meeting the Contact Points discussed the future cooperation with UK in light of the Brexit expressing mutual desire for continuous cooperation. The UK delegation presented the contingency plan established by the UK authorities in view of ensuring continuous cooperation.
The last part of the meeting was dedicated to the EJN Work Programme 2019 and ongoing and upcoming projects such as the development of the “Monitoring tool” for monitoring the website updates, finalization of the website translation project and revamp of the Judicial Library.
