On discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) for the financial year 2022

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SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1. Welcomes the fact that the Court of Auditors (the ‘Court’) has declared the transactions underlying the annual accounts of the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) for the financial year 2022 to be legal and regular in all material respects;

2. Notes an ongoing observation from 2020 on the legality and regularity of transactions based on a signature of a framework contract with a single company for the leasing of vehicles, which resulted 59 281 EUR irregular payment for the reporting period;

3. Welcomes that the casework carried out by Eurojust is steadily increasing, in 2022 by 14%, and that 528 Coordination Meetings and 22 Coordination Centres were organised, and that Eurojust supported 265 Joint Investigation Teams, facilitated the execution of 1 262 European Arrest Warrants and enabled the use of 5 415 European Investigation Orders; notes that the cases dealt with by Eurojust in 2022 involved more than triple the number of victims compared to 2021;

4. Appreciates the transnational cooperation between judicial authorities facilitated by Eurojust and the close cooperation with all actors in the criminal justice chain, which contributed to the arrest of more than 4 000 suspects, the seizure and or freezing of criminal assets worth almost EUR 3 billion and the seizure of drugs worth almost EUR 12 billion;

5. Welcomes the quick response to Russian’s invasion of Ukraine the Eurojust’s mandate was extended to include preserving, analysing and storing evidence relating to core international crimes and the creation of a judicial database to collect and analyse core international crimes evidence;

6. Welcomes the efforts by Eurojust to support the digitalisation of justice and the implementation of the new Eurojust Case Management System;

7. Welcomes the continued cooperation between Eurojust with other JHA Agencies and other stakeholders; the 14 case opened involving European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), and the close cooperation with the European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF), European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), eu-LISA and that Eurojust continued to cooperate with the European Judicial Network (EJN), bringing the number of cases referred to the EJN to 44 in 2021; further welcomes the increase in Eurojust contact points to over 60 countries;