EU Member States and third countries increasingly call on Eurojust to coordinate counter-terrorism investigations with a cross-border dimension. In 2020, the Agency supported 217 cases and 7 JITs with a counter-terrorism scope, focused on achieving justice for the victims of terrorist acts, cracking down on extremist propaganda or following up on individuals suspected of preparing or attempting to commit a terrorist crime, being members of a terrorist group or financing terrorism.
In October 2020, authorities from EU Member States met at Eurojust to discuss the progress made with information sharing via the European Judicial Counter-Terrorism Register, a unique operational tool that provides proactive support to national authorities. The initial experiences of this tool, which was launched at Eurojust in 2019, showed a significant increase in the amount of information transmitted to Eurojust and the first detection of links between proceedings in different Member States.
In November and December, Eurojust hosted online expert workshops on judicial responses to violent right-wing extremism and terrorism. The workshops offered an opportunity for judicial practitioners and experts in EU Member States and partner third countries, together with EU and international stakeholders to highlight best practice in the investigation and prosecution of these offences and identify common issues to be tackled at EU and international level.
‘In the last decade, we made important progress in the fight against terrorism. And perhaps the biggest achievement of all is related to the shift in our mind-set: A few years ago, the intelligence, law enforcement and judicial communities were very reluctant to share even a shed of information about a suspected terrorist. Today, we all understand that information sharing is our future.’
Ladislav Hamran, President of Eurojust, at the informal meeting of Ministers of Justice, 2 December 2021
Key publications included the annual Report on Counter-terrorism and the Terrorism Convictions Monitor, an overview of terrorism-related judgments across the Member States. And in cooperation with the EU Network for investigation and prosecution of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes (‘Genocide Network’), several expert meetings and reports addressed how battlefield evidence can be used to prosecute foreign terrorist fighters in the European Union and experiences with the cumulating of charges of terrorism and war crimes for returning foreign fighters.
Eurojust is an agency of the European Union