Date of release : 14-04-2005

Policy area : Justice and Home Affairs Justice and Home Affairs

Event : Justice and Home Affairs Council

The European Union’s "Justice and Home Affairs" Council met on Thursday, 14 April 2005, in Luxembourg, chaired by Luxembourg’s Minister for Justice, Luc Frieden. The Justice Minister's morning debates mainly centres on two points: the European payment order procedure and the exchange of information extracted from criminal records.

In the area of judicial cooperation in civil matters, the Justice Ministers of the European Union debated the proposed settlement for a European payment order procedure. "The goal of this proposal is to create a simple, fast, low-cost and standard procedure that will settle small litigation. This simplified and fast collection of claims is of fundamental importance for the different economic operators such as businesses in the European Union. This European procedure is an important component of the European judicial area because it is necessary for the internal market to function correctly," Luc Frieden stated at the first press conference of the day.

On this subject, the Ministers reacted favourably to the Luxembourg Presidency’s compromise position. A large majority of the Ministers stated they were in favour of a European procedure that would be limited to trans-border matters and that in all cases would be accompanied by a description of the evidence. Moreover, this European payment order procedure would become enforceable throughout the European Union upon issuance by a Member State. In this way, no declaration acknowledging its enforceability would be required in the executing Member State.

Also, to strengthen freedom, security and justice inside the European Union, the Ministers debated the exchange of information extracted from criminal records. The purpose of this debate was to determine the general guidelines that will inspire future work and, in particular, the Commission’s future proposals on the interconnection of national criminal records.

At the end of the discussions on the exchange of information extracted from criminal records, "a broad convergence emerged as to the necessity to base exchanges of violations on bilateral communications between criminal records and to provide for these infractions to be exchanged in a standard format," Luc Frieden underscored. He was delighted that "regarding access to information on convictions, the Council agreed on the compromise presented by the Luxembourg Presidency." The information on the judicial histories of community nationals will be concentrated in the State of nationality.

The practical details of implementing the principle of requiring the Member State of nationality to actually and fully record the convictions issued in another Member State of the European Union against its nationals will be strengthened.

As for third country nationals, the Justice Ministers considered the idea of creating a European index in order to identify the convicting Member State.

Finally, with regard to the upcoming 2007-2013 financial perspectives, the Council asked the Commission to submit its new proposals for the upcoming 2007-2013 financial framework in favour of the area of "Freedom, Security and Justice."

In the context of the JHA Council, the Member States signed the Convention on the accession of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovak Republic to the 1980 convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations and to the first and second memoranda regarding its interpretation by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.