Cross-border cooperation on criminal cases
7.5.2009
WRITTEN QUESTION E-3681/09
by Catherine Stihler (PSE)
to the Council
Recent cases have highlighted the need for cross-border cooperation in criminal cases — not so much to restrict cross-border travel by offenders but rather to facilitate better exchange of information about criminal records or post-sentence monitoring of offenders.
A series of initiatives have been put in place: the Council Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA[1] of 27 November 2008 on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to judgments and probation decisions with a view to the supervision of probation measures and alternative sanctions and the so-called ‘European Supervision Order’; and the Council Framework Decision 2008/675/JHA[2] of 24 July 2008 on taking account of convictions in the Member States of the European Union in the course of new criminal proceedings.
The latter is to facilitate the exchange of information throughout the EU about criminal convictions as extracted from Member States’ national databases, supplemented by a further framework decision to enable this exchange to occur electronically through ECRIS (the European Criminal Records Information System) by August 2010.
Can the Council reassure me that adequate resources are going in to ensure the same standard of criminal records across the EU countries and to help EU police forces share information to prevent convicted criminals from striking again?
OJ C 189, 13/07/2010