The Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, met today with the President of the EU Agency for Criminal Judicial Cooperation (Eurojust), Michael Schmid at The Hague (the Netherlands). The meeting focused on judicial cooperation between states and the ways to strengthen the role of this body, which coordinates the fight of national judicial authorities against serious cross-border and organized crime in Europe and third countries.
Bolaños insisted on Spain’s firm commitment to Eurojust and the will to continue promoting judicial cooperation in the European Union. He also highlighted the leadership role of our country to strengthen judicial cooperation with third countries, especially from Latin America.
Aside from Bolaños and Schmid, the meeting was attended by, among others, the Vice President of Eurojust and National Member for Spain, José de la Mata, and the Director General for International Legal Cooperation and Human Rights, Eva Pérez.
Afterwards, the Minister held a brief meeting with the Spanish community working at Eurojust, where he went over some of the reforms undertaken to modernize Spanish justice. Among them, digitization of the system to expedite all procedures.
Visit to Europol
During his work trip to The Hague, Minister Bolaños also met with Catherine de Bolle, Executive Director of Europol, the EU agency whose main function is to help law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities of the member states fight international crime and terrorism.
In this session, the Minister highlighted the importance of reinforcing coordination between Eurojust and Europol and addressing common challenges such as adapting to a quickly evolving technological environment, protection and access to data, and cooperation with third countries.
