Tien jaar Eurojust

Toespraak | 28-02-2012

Esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.

I am very happy to see you all here at this special event to mark Eurojust’s tenth anniversary. Eurojust has been based in the Netherlands since 10 December 2002. That was the result of a decision taken by the Laeken European Council in December 2001, a decision which was confirmed in December 2003. But enough of history.

I would now like to welcome you to The Hague, the international city of peace and justice. This is the home base from which Eurojust fights cross-border organised crime and terrorism, and helps Member States to do the same. As you are well aware, further developing international cooperation on justice and law enforcement is very important to the Netherlands. For that same reason, we are more than pleased to host a whole range of other international organisations. I am certain that the mayor, Jozias van Aartsen, will come back to this point in his address later on.

Today it is my privilege and pleasure to highlight Eurojust’s achievements in the past decade. We are here to celebrate a relatively short but impressive track record. At the same time, we need to begin looking forward to see how Eurojust’s potential can be fully exploited over the next few decades.

So first and foremost, let me extend my warm and heartfelt congratulations to Eurojust and its dedicated staff on your tenth anniversary. Over the years, since its formal establishment by the Council Decision of 2002, Eurojust has proved its added value as an indispensable tool for promoting and strengthening judicial cooperation in criminal matters within the EU. More than anything, it has done so by being an essential go-between for the national authorities. We know they are increasingly having to deal with the many complex and sophisticated forms of cross-border organised crime and terrorism so characteristic of this century. Without the involvement of Eurojust, many of the growing number of cases ending up on your desks every year might never have got off the ground at all, due to cultural and linguistic misunderstandings or lack of urgency. Or simply because no one knew who to contact in another Member State. Or, more worrying still, because of a general reluctance to engage in cross-border cooperation. After all, one might forgive the average, overstretched public prosecutor for thinking: ‘Why make my life even more complicated by opening the Pandora’s box on page 900 of the judicial file, when the previous pages are enough to secure a national conviction?’.

Going through Eurojust’s annual reports, as I am sure you’ve all done in preparation for this meeting, one is struck by the sheer variety of casework Eurojust has had to deal with over the years. The same goes for the wide range of practical obstacles in the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters still encountered by national authorities on a daily basis.

On an occasion like this, I am tempted to express an optimistic thought, if I may: in forty years’ time we should be celebrating half a century of Eurojust’s existence. Just imagine if, by then, Eurojust had become superfluous! And those practical problems had become a thing of the past. No doubt, given the often imperfect circumstances facing us now, we would look back and smile.

Joking apart, however, the reality for some time to come is that we do need Eurojust at the forefront of activities in this area. This is especially true in the present economic climate, where international cooperation may easily become even less of a priority than it already is. So we need Eurojust to continue to help us fight child pornography, trafficking in human beings, money laundering, terrorism, corruption, cybercrime and all its other priorities, precisely the issues confronting us all at national level. Much as we might like to think otherwise, to close our eyes to that reality would merely be a Utopian dream.

For all these reasons, we absolutely need Eurojust to fulfil its potential. We look forward to reading the Commission’s proposals on strengthening Eurojust’s internal structure, to enable it to play its role as well as possible. We will also welcome steps to promote greater transparency in the provision of information, not only to the European Parliament and national parliaments, in line with the Treaty, but to the Council as well. Finally, as we have heard on many occasions like this, we need intensive cooperation between Eurojust and all the relevant EU agencies, including Europol, Frontex and CEPOL. We call on these agencies to keep the Member States on their toes and to show them what they can do to improve matters.

Last, but certainly not least, as a representative of the Host State, I assure you that we are very proud to have Eurojust here and we are keen to make a modest, but significant contribution to its future role by building new premises, close to Europol. We strongly believe that this is where Eurojust belongs, right at the heart of European cooperation in this field.

Thank you.