Sarah Ludford, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Pagano for her excellent report and her cooperation in drafting compromise amendments which took in, for instance, some of my suggestions.

I think the European Parliament is putting down a firm marker regarding its ambitions for a European criminal justice area in the future, with the twin ambition of bringing criminals to justice and upholding the rights of defendants and victims. The report rightly highlights key issues like the need for monitoring implementation of legislation; boosting the training of judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers; and new legislation ensuring procedural safeguards, as Gérard Deprez has emphasised.

The European arrest warrant is an effective instrument for bringing criminals to justice, and I strongly regret that the British Conservatives opposed it. However, we must ensure – and governments must ensure – that European arrest warrants are not misused for trivial issues, like pursuing people who stole a pig or did not pay a hotel bill. Nor must it be abused for fishing expeditions for questioning, rather than the proper focus on return for charge and prosecution.

The European arrest warrant – as others have said – and the whole of criminal justice is based on mutual trust. So the Member States must show they deserve that trust by having high-quality legal systems and respecting, for instance, the European Convention on Human Rights and Strasbourg court judgements. We cannot have people returned, via European arrest warrants, to an EU country who are then sent back to a third country for torture. If defiance of Strasbourg happens, then the fundamental rights safeguards in the European arrest warrant must be invoked. I think EU governments have ducked the challenge of tackling substantive disparities in legal systems and the patchy respect for fair trial and human rights.

We must also try and ensure that the quality of criminal justice legislation is better in the future. Hopefully, after Lisbon – I am delighted the Czech Senate has ratified the Lisbon Treaty – we will have fewer press launches of Member State proposals which go nowhere and then, even if they are approved, are never properly implemented. EU-wide justice and high legal standards are crucial for our citizens when they travel, work and set up businesses in other countries and when people have to try and explain themselves in a foreign language. It is high time that we made sure that anyone caught up in the criminal justice system of another Member State was made aware of their rights and obtained proper legal assistance, interpretation and translation.

Finally, I am very disappointed that the UK Government was one of those that blocked a procedural rights measure. I hope they are going to change their minds in the future.