Like Mushrooms After a Rainy Autumn Day

Abstract

In the past 10 years, the Member States of the EU have experienced an increasing exchange of information for the purposes of preventing and fighting serious cross-border crime. Several elements have converged to this intensive workflow in the area of Freedom, Security and Justice of the EU, including the adoption of certain principles (availability, mutual recognition) and strategies (EU Policy on Information Exchange and Management, European Information Exchange Model), as the consolidation of the EU agencies aimed at promoting cooperation and cooperation between law enforcement and judicial authorities in cross-border cases. There has been a proliferation of EU databases and information systems, both at European level (ECRIS, Prüm, SIS-II, CIS, VIS) and at international level (PNR, TFTP). A wide set of legal instruments facilitate direct contacts between judicial authorities. There has also been a proliferation of the administrative rules governing the processing and protection of personal data, which seems to overlap in certain cases with the national codes of criminal proceedings, the legal instruments of judicial cooperation in criminal matters and, more recently, with the rights of suspects and accused persons in cross-border proceedings. As criminality evolves, new legal instruments are on the table in order to improve the possibilities of law enforcement and judicial authorities to exchange information and cooperate closely in the fight against serious transnational crime, as the Eurojust draft Regulation, the European Public Prosecutor’s Regulation, the European Investigation Order Directive, and the DP draft Directive.

The opinions expressed by the author are personal and do not necessary coincide with those of the institution she is working for.