Eurojust Annual Report 2002

Abstract:

I am pleased to present the first Annual Report of the College of Eurojust. It is for the calendar year 2002. The report sets out casework activity and management, including budgetary management, during the past year and also our plans for the future.

The European Council meeting at Laeken in Belgium during December 2001 confirmed that Eurojust would be able to begin work in The Hague. This heralded 2002 as a year of change for Eurojust. This is the first report prepared since the Council Decision creating Eurojust was agreed on 28 February 2002 and published on the European Journal of the European Union on 6th March. As a consequence, Eurojust became a definitive unit with a legal personality and the College agreed its general rules of procedure to enable the Decision to be implemented.

One article of the Rules of Procedure outlines the framework for the College to appoint a President and two Vice-Presidents. In June 2002, the College elected the national member for the United Kingdom, Michael Kennedy, as its President with Olivier de Baynast (France) and Ignacio Pelaez Marquéz (Spain) as Vice- Presidents. Mr. Pelaez Marquéz resigned in December 2002 to take up a post in Spain and, following an election, he was replaced as a Vice-President by Bjorn Blomqvist (Sweden) in January 2003.

Operational casework continued throughout 2002, with 202 cases being referred to the College. Full details are contained in the Casework section of this report. During the year, a series of co-ordination and other operational meetings were held to handle specific cases on topics such as terrorism, child pornography on the Internet, fraud, money laundering, trafficking in human beings and drugs.

The extent of casework activity was restricted as it was necessary for the College to devote considerable time to administrative matters. The most significant of these was the establishment of Eurojust’s new administrative infrastructure and the negotiations with the Dutch authorities to provide suitable accommodation with adequate facilities in The Hague. We are grateful for the efforts made by the Dutch government in this respect.

Eurojust was also able to prepare and submit a draft budget for € 3.5 million, which was approved by the Budget Committee of the European Parliament in May 2002, although € 0.7million was held in reserve. A draft budget for 2003 was also approved during the year.

On 10th December 2002, the College began work at its premises in The Hague. The first significant steps have been taken to achieve the ambitions visualized at the European Council in Tampere to establish an EU Judicial Co-operation Unit. Eurojust now provides an additional practical weapon for national prosecutors and investigators in the fight against serious, organised, cross-border crime.