Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, one and a half years have passed since the Tampere Council decided to set up Eurojust as a European coordination unit for criminal prosecution authorities and public prosecutors. This is a relatively short period of time if you compare progress in other areas of European policy. In Parliament we have been very positive towards this rapid progress and have taken an active interest in it. After Europol, the creation of Eurojust is a further important step towards combating organised cross-border crime in Europe more effectively. The first step in the judicial area, namely setting up the European Judicial Network, has already been a success. With the help of this network, for example, the public prosecutor in the German town of Celle was, within the space of a few hours, able to deploy an undercover detective from Belgian customs and, together with public prosecutors from another country, carry out an observation operation in a third country, again within the space of a few hours. Thus many an opportunity to give mutual assistance – which was supposed forgotten – has been made to bear fruit. Problems remained, however, for example with interpreting conventions on mutual assistance, criminal law and criminal proceedings and with the division of responsibilities. To compound matters there were communication problems because of the natural language barriers. With Eurojust these obstacles should now be surmounted. Eurojust has, first and foremost, a clearing function. The officials are to draft comparisons of laws, resolve bilateral disputes over the application and interpretation of conventions on mutual assistance, set priorities for fighting crime in Europe and monitor current transnational criminal prosecution measures. In the future, Eurojust will also have to keep lists of transnational investigations and be in a position to pass on this information; it will have to act as a registration point for information on serious offences and plan, coordinate and run training and development programmes. Through Eurojust, the national prosecution authorities will have access to reliable legal advice – without encountering language difficulties – and will be able to resolve transnational disputes. I should like to express my warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Gebhardt, for drafting Parliament's opinion, which is now to be put to the vote, and for the good level of cooperation. Alongside her amendments, there is one further amendment in particular to which I attach great importance. Until now, the judicial network has been a body without a head. If we are now setting up Eurojust to be the missing head then we are also obliged to provide shared nerve fibres, without which body and head will not function together. Eurojust and the European Judicial Network should not stand alongside each other or only enter loosely into contact with each other; they need to be bound together in one unit. This can be achieved by using the already existing contact points of the European Judicial Network instead of the proposed national correspondents for Eurojust. Only in this way can a superfluous juxtaposition of two systems with the same area of responsibility be avoided in the long term. This is one of the ideas which our proposals contain. I should like to ask the Council to take account of these in its considerations. Then Eurojust really will be a success and make a contribution to the people of Europe living in greater security. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE