During the two Plenary Meetings of 2017 that took place under the Maltese and Estonian Presidencies, practitioners from the European Union (EU) discussed the practical application of Directive 2014/41/EU regarding the European Investigation Order in criminal matters (“EIO Directive”).
The EIO Directive, which had its transposition deadline on 22 May 2017, proved to be a priority for the EJN, as several measures have been taken by the EJN Secretariat and the EJN Contact Points in order to provide a smooth transitional period and application of the Directive.
48th Plenary meeting of EJN in Malta, June 2017
The 48th Plenary Meeting of the European Judicial Network (EJN) that took place in Valletta, Malta, in June 2017, gave the opportunity to the participants to discuss the immediate effect of the EIO Directive. Therefore, the discussion revolved around the different challenges the MS faced with during this initial period. Some of the topics covered were the delay in the transposition for some MS, the challenges in practice after the transposition, the language regime, and the role and support of the EJN and Eurojust. In addition, participants to the Plenary Meeting stressed the urgent need for guidelines, EIO electronic model forms, and trainings for practitioners, in order to fulfil their functions efficiently.
49th Plenary Meeting of EJN in Estonia, November 2017
In the course of the 49th Plenary Meeting of EJN that took place in Tallinn, Estonia, in November 2017, the participants shared their thoughts on the EIO during the workshop on the “Practical Implementation of the EIO in Criminal Matters.” The main aim of the discussion was to identify the main challenges in relation to the gathering of evidence in criminal matters not only when both MS have the EIO Directive transposed in their national legislation, but also when there is one MS which transposed the Directive and another MS which did not transposed it yet.
The practitioners shared experiences on challenges faced regarding the practical application of the EIO Directive and tried identifying solutions to mitigate them. The discussion focused on the scope of the EIO Directive, the applicability of the ‘rule of speciality’, EIO in urgent matters, time limits, identification of the competent executing/receiving authorities, and the importance of EIO information on the EJN website.
For further information please see the General Secretariat of the Council document on the Extracts from Conclusions of Plenary meetings of the EJN concerning the practical application of the EIO