Recommendations as to how to address the shortcomings identified

• Author: Ballegooij, Wouter van
• Pages: 68-74

EPRS | European Parli amentary Re search Servic e

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4. Recommendations as to how to ad dress the sh ortcomings

identified

Upon the request of the rappor teur, this European implement ation assessment also contains a

number of recommendations on how to address the shortcomings it has iden tified. For th e sake of

cons istency, t he recommendations are streamlined in accordance with the evaluation criteria:

effectiveness, com pliance with EU values and fundamental rights, efficiency, relevance, coherence

and EU added value. They are joined by s hort explanations refer ring back t o the findings of the

previous chapt ers. In the medium term, for reasons of democr atic legitimacy, legal certainty and

coherence with oth er judicial cooperation and procedural rights measures, a ‘Lisbonisation’ of the

FD EAW is recommended. This process could be part of a proposed EU jud icial cooperation code.

Such an initiat ive cou ld also contain legislative pr oposals on the prevention and resolution of

conflicts of competen ce and the tra nsfer of proceedings.

In line with more general suggestions on how best to evaluate the transposition and application of

measur es in the ar ea of judicial coo peration in crim inal ma tter s,403 the final decision on embarking

on such a comprehensive review should take into account the compliance assessment that will

short ly be present ed by the Eur opean Commission and the mut ual evaluations the Member St ates

joined in the Council are currently conducting. In addition, the European Parliament could also

consider requesting the Commission to conduct a ‘fitness check’ evaluating and identifying gaps

and inconsistencies in order to consider p ossible way s of simplifying a nd streamlining the current

EU framework in the area of jud icial coop eration in cr iminal ma tters.404 A s imilar exer cise wa s already

conducted in the area o f legal migration. 405Another, compatible option would be for it to launch a

legis lative own -initiative report in accordance with Article 225 TFEU, that would result in concrete

recommendations towards the Commission on how to review the FD EAW. Finally, the European

Parliament could conduct furth er implementat ion reports on related judicial cooperation

instruments, notably EIO, the FD on in absentia decisions, the FD on Transfer of Prisoners, the FD on

PAS and the ESO as well as the various measures discussed in Section 2.3. concerning the rights of

suspects , including requested persons.

4.1. Effectiveness

The Com miss ion could in itiat e ta rgeted infringement proceedings against those

Member Stat es which have incorr ectly or deficiently transposed the FD EAW .

Explanation: the 2014 Euro pean Commiss ion r esponse406 to Parliamen t's legisla tive own-init iative

argued th at proposing legislative changes to th e FD EAW would be premat ure in light of the ability

of the Commiss ion to star t infringement procedures. No such infringement pr ocedures were

403 P. Albe rs, P. Be auvais, J.F. Bohne rt, M. B öse, P. Langbr oek, A . Reni er and T. Wahl , Towards a common evaluation framework

to assess mutual trust in the field of EU judicial cooperation in criminal matters, 2013, short version of the final report at

p. 56: By making use of several evaluation methods and sources of data the reliability of the findings of the evaluation

will i ncrease, whi ch will al so le ad to better informat ion t hat can be use d for dec ision makers to conti nue with a

(European) policy or to adjust the policy directions in the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

404 European Commission, Bett er Regulat ion Toolbox nr. 43, What i s an evaluati on and when is it re quired?

405 European Commission, L egal Mi grati on Fi tness c heck; W. van Balle gooij, E. Thiri on, The Cost of non-Europe in the area

of Legal Migrat ion, EPRS, European Parliament, 2019.

406 Commission r esponse t o text adopted in ple nary SP (2014) 447.