EU ministers target better cooperation in five-year justice plan

Jul 16, 2009, 8:47 GMT

Stockholm - European Union interior ministers gathered in Stockholm on Thursday to debate a five-year justice plan aimed at boosting cooperation between member states on legal matters.

'The discussion about how to cooperate better between police, prosecutors and so forth is important ... because it's necessary to get people out on the street to know how they can use the European tools better,' Swedish Interior Minister Beatrice Ask, who chaired the informal meeting, said.

Sweden is the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, and is tasked with drawing up the bloc's third five-year justice plan, dubbed the Stockholm Programme, by the end of the year.

The EU is divided into 27 member states, each with their own legal, judicial and policing systems, making it difficult for officials in any one country to deal with cross-border criminal operations.

The bloc has been working on the issue for 10 years, pushing for more cross-border training and setting up harmonized systems such as the European arrest warrant, a standardized system with which police in one country can demand the arrest and extradition of a suspect in another member state.

Swedish officials say that the Stockholm Programme will try go still further by setting up, for example, a centralized database to cover the bloc's various security computer systems, and mandating that half of all judicial staff and a third of EU policemen receive training in cross-border issues.

It will also push for better use of existing rules, so that member states have more practice at working together.

'It's a question that practitioners can use what's already there and find good methods to cooperate,' Ask said.

Sweden also wants the programme to focus on the rights of citizens by improving their access to cross-border services such as courtroom interpretation.