Proceedings relating to the execution of European arrest warrants issued agains Ciprian Vasile Radu.
Date: 2013-01-29
22. It is settled case-law that questions on the interpretation of European Union law referred by a national court in the factual and legislative context which that court is responsible for defining, and the accuracy of which is not a matter for the Court to determine, enjoy a presumption of relevance. The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of European Union law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (Joined Cases C-188/10 and C-189/10 Melki and Abdeli  [2010] ECR I-5667, paragraph 27 and the case-law cited).
24. It must first of all be noted that that fifth question is hypothetical. The fact that the contested European arrest warrants were actually issued is sufficient to demonstrate that, as the German Government confirmed at the hearing, Framework Decision 2002/584 had indeed been transposed by the Federal Republic of Germany at the time when those arrest warrants were issued. That question is therefore inadmissible.
33. It should also be recalled that, as is apparent in particular from Article 1(1) and (2) of Framework Decision 2002/584 and from recitals 5 and 7 in the preamble thereto, the purpose of that decision is to replace the multilateral system of extradition between Member States with a system of surrender, as between judicial authorities, of convicted persons or suspects for the purpose of enforcing judgments or of conducting prosecutions, that system of surrender being based on the principle of mutual recognition (see judgment of 5 September 2012 in Case C-42/11 Lopes Da Silva Jorge , paragraph 28 and the case-law cited).
34. Framework Decision 2002/584 thus seeks, by the establishment of a new simplified and more effective system for the surrender of persons convicted or suspected of having infringed criminal law, to facilitate and accelerate judicial cooperation with a view to contributing to the objective set for the European Union to become an area of freedom, security and justice by basing itself on the high degree of confidence which should exist between the Member States (see, to that effect, judgment of 28 June 2012 in Case C-192/12 PPU West , paragraph 53 and the case-law cited).
35. Under Article 1(2) of Framework Decision 2002/584, the Member States are in principle obliged to act upon a European arrest warrant.
36. As the Court has already held, according to the provisions of Framework Decision 2002/584, the Member States may refuse to execute such a warrant only in the cases of mandatory non-execution provided for in Article 3 thereof and in the cases of optional non-execution listed in Articles 4 and 4a (see, to that effect, Case C-388/08 PPU Leymann and Pustovarov  [2008] ECR I-8993, paragraph 51, and Case C-261/09 Mantello  [2010] ECR I-11477, paragraph 37). Furthermore, the executing judicial authority may make the execution of a European arrest warrant subject solely to the conditions set out in Article 5 of that framework decision.