I warmly welcome the conclusions of today's Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council in Luxembourg and the strong support the Ministers are giving to Eurojust. The Council fully acknowledges our important role in the EU's security and justice chain and our need for adequate funding. Member States are more and more relying on Eurojust, resulting in an annual increase of new Eurojust cases of more than 20%. We can only continue to provide the Member States with hands-on, practical support when we have sufficient resources at our disposal.

Furthermore, I am pleased that the EU Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs welcome the launch of a Judicial Counter-Terrorism Register (CRT) at Eurojust on 5 September 2019. The CRT will centralise key judicial information that will allow us to more swiftly detect links between proceedings against suspects of terrorist offences. Having the right information will greatly enhance our efforts to combat terrorism.

To strengthen the fight against cross-border crime, we need to work towards a fully operational digital criminal justice system. I am grateful for the Council's support of our goal to introduce such a system in the near future.