Thank you, Mr President, for allowing me to speak on behalf of Mrs Gebhardt, who has at the last moment been prevented from being here, and has asked me to deliver the statement that follows. Making Europe an area of freedom, security and justice is a very ambitious objective for the EU as a whole, but primarily a very central one, promising protection to almost 380 million people in fifteen countries. This area of freedom and justice is intended, at the same time, to allay fears. If this area is to be created, we need legislation on it at European level to be very well constructed, and on this we are, step by step, making good progress, but we also have to create an infrastructure to build on if we are not to end up with a ruin and give our citizens good cause for disappointment. The resolution before us is concerned with an important element in this infrastructure, dealing as it does with the training of lawyers at European level. Widely divergent systems and legal traditions mean that there are difficult issues to be resolved in this context. The French Government came up with an interesting proposal, which Mrs Gebhardt improved by making corrections, adding to the proposal at a number of points. It is thanks to the good cooperation of all involved that a good outcome has been achieved, one which the committee was able to adopt with only one abstention. One of these amendments has to do with the legal basis; whereas the French proposal takes as its basis Articles 31 and 34 of the Treaty on the European Union, ours is founded on Article 42, firstly in order to keep bureaucracy within limits, and secondly, in order to facilitate flexible extension of the network. The French proposal refers only to judges in the criminal law field who wish to receive such training. That is not enough. Civil law is a natural part of the area of freedom, security and justice, which is not created only by judges. There is room for all professions concerned with the law and the administration of justice – such as lawyers, public prosecutors and police officers in the United Kingdom – to play their appropriate parts. An understanding and acceptance of the different legal systems needs to be promoted in all these professions, or else there will be a lack of trust leading to them resisting judicial measures originating from a different legal system, even though they have to be accepted and implemented as if they were rulings originating from their own national legal system with which they are familiar. Smooth and speedy completion of procedures promotes public confidence in the area of freedom, security and justice that they are promised. What is self-evident in the business world must also become the rule in the judiciary, namely that success comes from learning more. It is that success that is made certain by the Judicial Training Network, which also makes life easier for those who work with the law. That is urgently needed. What is evident from the report on Pro Eurojust's activities in 2000 is that those who work with the law in the different Member States do not always find it easy to work together efficiently, whether this be because of differences in the legislation or insufficient language knowledge in their specialised field. A strong training network would make it possible to remove such obstacles, so let us get one connected up!

Political group: PSE