The European Council in 1997 adopted an Action Plan to combat organised crime, which was prepared by a high-level group of experts from the Member States. The goal of several of the recommendations of this Action Plan is the improvement of the standards of cooperation between judicial authorities in criminal matters. On the basis of this Action Plan (recommendation no. 21), and amongst other measures, the Council on 29 June 1998 adopted a Joint Action on the creation of the European Judicial Network (EJN).

The EJN was officially inaugurated on 25 September 1998 by the Austrian Minister of Justice during its Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Thus, the EJN was the first practically structured mechanism of judicial cooperation in the EU to become truly operational.

The objective of the EJN is quite simple: to identify and put in direct contact those persons in every Member State who play a fundamental role in practice in the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, creating an experts' network that ensures the proper execution of mutual legal assistance requests, and forges direct contacts between competent judicial authorities.

The EJN has a non-concentrated, dynamic structure, with a horizontal character and possessing only the minimum organisational necessary for its functioning (the Secretariat). Therefore, its main character is flexibility. It is composed of contact points of the Member States, as well as of the European Commission.

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