Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. The EU justice agenda for 2020 – strengthening trust, mobility and growth within the Union

Over the last 15 years, on the basis of the Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice, the EU has progressively developed a European area of justice and an EU justice policy. Before 2009, action in these fields was marked by an institutional set-up that differed from that for other EU policy areas. In particular, the European Parliament and the Council were not yet on an equal footing, while priorities were mainly set by the European Council, through the adoption of partly very detailed five-year programmes (the Tampere, The Hague and Stockholm programmes).

Today, the EU justice policy has become close to other EU policies, following successive changes to the EU Treaties, in particular the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009. The European Parliament and the Council have become co-legislators in most areas of judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters. As of 1 December 2014, a final transitional phase will come to an end. This will lift current limitations to the judicial control by the European Court of Justice and to the Commission's power to launch infringements, as the guardian of the Treaty over the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters. The Commission will continue to ensure the proper implementation of EU legislation in the justice areas.

As also the European Council's Stockholm Programme and the following Commission action plan come to term at the end of 2014, the time has come to take stock of the progress made and identify the key challenges ahead and how to address them.

This Communication sets out the political priorities that should be pursued in order to make further progress towards a fully functioning common European area of justice oriented towards trust, mobility and growth by 2020.

In preparing this Communication, the Commission involved a wide range of stakeholders and interested parties, in particular through the ‘Assises de la Justice’ conference and received a vast number of written contributions. Discussions were also carried out in the European Parliament, the Council and the Committee of Regions.

The Commission's orientations relating specifically to judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters are intended to contribute to the strategic guidelines to be defined by the European Council in accordance with Article 68 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); and to the strategic choices which the European Parliament will want to give to the further development of the European area of justice.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)144: Follow the progress of this communication through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:144:FIN

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