Country reports
Here you can find the STREAM Country Reports and their updates. The Country reports are elaborated by our national experts and provide a synthetic analysis of key controversies that emerged in the implementation of the EAW in the countries of Study.
Belgium
Country Research Brief
Sergi Vazquez Maymir; Paul de Hert
This STREAM Research Brief on Belgium offers an overview of the latest questions faced by the country’s judicial authorities under the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) regime.
The seven cases examined provide an up-to-date picture of how Belgian courts have recently addressed issues arising from the implementation of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Paying special attention to conflicts of the Rule of Law and EU fundamental rights, the cases reveal key insights into tensions between the Belgian national law and the need for cooperation under the Council Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant 2002/584/JHA (EAW FD)2 through surrender procedures between Member States.
Periodic Report
Sergi Vazquez Maymir; Paul de Hert
The first periodic country report for Belgium, aims to identify the some of the country’s key notes regarding the issuing and execution of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). The report is built upon the examination of case law which has been selected by the following criteria. First the number of instances and decisions involved in each case which consequently elevate the diversity of the legal discussions addressed in each of them. Second, the novelty of the legal discussions”
Executive Summary
Sergi Vazquez Maymir; Paul de Hert
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Finland
Periodic Report
Prof. Matti Tolvanen
Framework Decision of the Council of the European Union (2002/584/YOS) has been internally enforced in Finland by the Act on Surrender Procedures between Finland and Other Member States of the European Union (1286/2003, the EU Surrender Act) (Fredman et al 2020, p. 237 – 250 and Melander 2015, p. 265 – 290.).
The Supreme Court (SC) has given several precedents on questions related to the interpretation and implementation of the Framework Decision (FD) rules in European Arrest Warrant (EAW) cases involving Finland. Precedents are decisions given by the SC on questions that the law has left unclear to help interpret and apply the law similarly in future cases. These precedents have, firstly, concerned how national legislation should be interpreted in order to be in keeping with the objective of the Framework Decision. …
Executive Summary
Prof. Matti Tolvanen
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
France
Periodic Report
Pr Karine Gilberg
Since the early implementation of the EAW Framework Decision (EAW FD) in France, the French case law has evolved towards a stronger focus on fundamental rights in the execution of EAWs issued by other Member States.
Along with the evolution of the ECHR case law and more recently of the ECJ case law, French courts have progressively strengthened their control over EAWs taking into account the fundamental rights issue, reconsidering thus the prevalence of the mutual trust and recognition principles. The Cour de cassation (the highest French criminal court) deepened its control over Chambre de l’instruction decisions to execute EAW…
Executive Summary
Pr Karine Gilberg
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Germany
Country Research Brief
Dominik Brodowski
This STREAM Research Brief provides an overview of how German judicial authorities consider rule of law guarantees, fundamental rights, and procedural safeguards in the context of EAW proceedings, building upon ‘leading cases’ identified and analysed in the Periodic Country Report for Germany,2 starting with the landmark order of the Second Senate of the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) of 15 December 2015…
Periodic Report
Dominik Brodowski
According to the most recent data available from the European Commission (2020, p. 9, 14), Germany issues the most European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) per year (3.783 EAWs in 2018), but also effectively surrenders the most persons pursuant to a receipt of an EAW (1.240 persons in 2018). However, it is also Germany where the highest number of EAWs was refused to be executed by Judicial Authority (226 instances in 2018), 76 of those explicitly based on the reference to fundamental rights in Art. 1(3) EAW FD (cf. European Commission, 2020, p. 16, 21)…
Executive Summary
Dominik Brodowski
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Greece
Country Research Brief
Elisabeth Symeonidou – Kastanidou
The aim of this STREAM Research Brief for Greece is to provide an overview of the extent to which rule of law guarantees (and specifically judicial independence), as well as fundamental rights and procedural safeguards are taken into consideration by national judicial authorities when issuing and executing European Arrest Warrants (EAWs) further to the European Arrest Warrant Framework Decision (EAW FD).2 In particular, it will critically examine whether effective judicial protection is ensured when issuing an EAW, whether the judicial authorities take into account the protection of fundamental rights and rule of law guarantees, and whether access to effective remedies is granted…
Periodic Report
Yannis Naziris
The aim of this (first) STREAM Country Report for Greece is to convey information concerning the ways in which judicial authorities in the country have interpreted and applied the different fundamental rights and rule of law standards that – under EU and national law – govern the issuing, validation, recognition, and execution of a European Arrest Warrant [hereafter EAW]. This is done primarily by means of presenting selected decisions by judicial organs entrusted with the execution of EAWs under Greek law, as well as surveying the law and practice of Greek authorities competent to issue EAWs addressed to other EU member States…
Executive Summary
Yannis Naziris
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Hungary
Country Research Brief
Petra Bárd
This STREAM Research Brief was supposed to provide an overview of how and the extent to which European rule of law guarantees and fundamental rights have been taken into consideration by Hungarian judicial authorities both in the issuing and the executing phases of European Arrest Warrants (EAWs). There are two issues that jeopardize the efforts to fully comply with this research objective.
First, it is difficult to access lower court judgments in Hungary including those related to EAWs. Although there is a publicly available database, hits will only point to extremely short summaries, which in practice only show that an EAW has been issued. The sources for Hungary therefore mean a focus on cases that are available because they either reached the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court of Justice), or because the executing judicial authority published its response, i.e. the entire judgment concerning EAWs issued in Hungary…
Periodic Report
Petra Bárd
Hungary is one of the countries with systemic problems, as is well documented by EU and extra-EU documents system of governance. Hungary consistently appears across the different indices showing declining Rule of Law patterns. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) showed that Hungary was not a democracy any longer, instead it became an electoral autocracy. Freedom House does not classify Hungary as a free country since 2019. According to the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI) Hungary was among the countries with the most significant drops in matters of the Rule of Law. When looking over a five-year-period, the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index showed that Hungary – together with Poland – declined the most in the EU/EFTA/North-America region…
Executive Summary
Petra Bárd
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Ireland
Country Research Brief
Dr Andrea Ryan
The STREAM Periodic Country Report for Ireland has already examined in detail the procedures for issuing and execution of European Arrest Warrants (EAW) in Ireland.
The focus of this STREAM Research Brief is directed to an examination of the role of how fundamental rights and rule of law guarantees required by both EU law and Irish Constitutional law are taken into account by judicial authorities, namely the extent to which they are a limit to the principle of mutual recognition in surrender cooperation between Ireland and the other EU Member States. This analysis draws on the findings presented in the Country Report for Ireland, and highlights in particular two cases that provide clear examples of how the courts have dealt with arguments opposing surrender on fundamental rights and rule of law grounds.
Periodic Report
Dr Andrea Ryan
The Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant (FDEAW) was transposed by Ireland through the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 (the 2003 Act). Under the 2003 Act, the central authority is the Minister for Justice, the High Court is the executing judicial authority, and in relation to the issuing of EAWs, once the domestic arrest warrant has been issued by a judge of the District or Circuit court, a European arrest warrant can be issued by those courts upon application by the Director of Public Prosecutions (the DPP)….
Executive Summary
Dr Andrea Ryan
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Italy
Country Research Brief
Silvia Allegrezza
This STREAM Research Brief shows the extent to which rule of law guarantees and EU fundamental rights are treated by the Italian courts. Italian case law is based on the implementation of the European Arrest Warrant Framework Decision 2002/5842 by Law no. 69/2005, as amended in 2017 (Law No. 117/2017), and again more radically by Legislative Decree no. 10/ 2021. To this end, the analysis includes several rulings of the Constitutional Court, more than 700 judgments of the Court of Cassation and many judgments of lower jurisdictions, in particular of the Court of Appeals, the judicial body responsible for executing the EAWs…
Periodic Report
Silvia Allegrezza
This report highlights key legal issues emerged from Italian case-law on the implementation by Law no. 69/2005 of the Framework Decision 2002/584 on the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) as amended first in 2017 (Law No. 117/2017) and more radically by Legislative Decree no. 10/ 2021. What follows needs to be read with a number of important caveats…
Executive Summary
Silvia Allegrezza
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Luxembourg
Country Research Brief
Prof. Dr. Katalin Ligeti; Panayiotis Constantinides
This STREAM Research Brief provides a synopsis of how the judicial authorities in Luxembourg take fundamental rights and procedural guarantees into consideration when implementing the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) system pursuant to Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA (EAW FD), during both the issuing and executing stages. To prepare this Research Brief, we examined Luxembourg’s legislative framework, analysed relevant EU and Luxembourg case law, and interviewed one of Luxembourg’s Deputy Chief Public Prosecutors to gain a more concrete understanding of the relevant issues…
Periodic Report
Prof. Dr. Katalin Ligeti; Panayiotis Constantinides
This Country Report (Report) aims to evaluate the solutions adopted by Luxembourg judicial authorities when implementing FD 2002/584 at both issuing and executing proceedings. To prepare this Report, we analyzed Luxembourg case law, and carried out interviews with relevant stakeholders in order to gain a concrete understanding of how the EAW instrument is implemented in Luxembourg. Specifically, we interviewed two Deputy Chief Public Prosecutors from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Director of investigating judges in the District Court of Diekirch, an investigating judge, a district Public Prosecutor, and a defence lawyer…
Executive Summary
Prof. Dr. Katalin Ligeti; Panayiotis Constantinides
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Poland
Country Research Brief
Marek Ryszard Smarzewski
This STREAM Research Brief aims to provide an overview of how and the extent to which rule of law guarantees (in particular judicial independence), as well as EU fundamental rights and procedural safeguards have been taken into consideration by Polish judicial authorities who issue and execute European Arrest Warrants (EAWs).
Considering the practice of cooperation in the EAW area, it is therefore important to refer to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (three judgments), Court of Justice of the European Union (four judgments), Constitutional Tribunal of Poland (one judgment), Supreme Court (one resolution and one judgment), courts of appeal (four decisions), and regional courts (thirty decisions) as competent to make decisions on the issuing and execution of EAW. Selected jurisprudence illustrates the problems identified in different sections of this Research Brief.
First Periodic Report
Marek Ryszard Smarzewski
The European Arrest Warrant (hereinafter referred to as “EAW”) is a legal instrument which has introduced, to the greatest extent possible, the principle of mutual recognition, which is the “cornerstone” of EU cooperation in criminal matters.1 At the core of the EAW – as stated in recital 10 of the FD EAW – lies a high level of trust in relations between the Member States of the European Union.
In Polish procedural criminal law, the institution of the EAW is regulated in Chapter 65a (“Motion to a European Union Member State for the surrender a requested person pursuant to a European Arrest Warrant”) and in Chapter 65b (“Motion of a European Union Member State to surrender a requested person pursuant to a European Arrest Warrant”) of the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure, hereinafter the CCP).2 It was introduced into the CCP by transposition into the Polish legal order of FD EAW, pursuant to the Act of 18 March 2004,3 which entered into force on 1 May 2004, upon Poland’s accession to the European Union…
Executive Summary
Marek Ryszard Smarzewski
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Portugal
Country Research Brief
Pedro Caeiro; Raquel Cardoso
The purpose of this STREAM Research Brief is to assess how Portuguese judicial authorities (acting as issuing and executing authorities) handle the issues of EU fundamental rights and rule of law in the context of EAW cases. For that reason, as mentioned in the Periodic Country Report for Portugal, the authors have chosen the topics that, in their view, bear a closer connection with individual rights and the subject matter of STREAM, together with other topics suggested by the coordination of the project: ‘issuing authority and its independence, proportionality, detention, trials in absentia, right to translation and other procedural rights, refusal of surrender on the grounds of humanitarian concerns or the protection of human/fundamental rights, dual criminality and life sentences. The reasons for this choice are, in some cases, self-explanatory; in other cases, they arise from particular aspects of the transposition of the FD EAW into Portuguese law, which in turn reflect on the jurisprudence on the matter’…
Periodic Report
Pedro Caeiro; Raquel Cardoso
This report is based on an exhaustive survey of all the judicial decisions on the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) published in the official websites run by Instituto de Gestão Financeira e Equipamentos da Justiça, I.P., Conselho Superior da Magistratura and Tribunal Constitucional.
Executive Summary
Pedro Caeiro; Raquel Cardoso
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Spain
Country Research Brief
Mar Jimeno-Bulnes
Under Spain’s law on the mutual recognition of judicial decisions in criminal matters in the EU of 2014 (LRM), Central Judges of Criminal Investigation have competence to execute a European Arrest Warrant (Article 35(2)), and the Criminal Chamber of the National High Court has jurisdiction over a claim for ‘a remedy of appeal’ (Article 51(8)).
Some of their rulings have already been considered in the STREAM Periodic Country Report for Spain, along with leading judgments of the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court. This STREAM Research Brief now focuses on recent case law of the Criminal Chamber of the National High Court (from 2021-2022), concerning appeals in which a mandatory or optional ground for non-execution of an EAW is usually raised by the defence. Many of those rulings include relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court of Justice) in their rationale…
Periodic Report
Mar Jimeno-Bulnes
This report deals with judicial decisions pronounced by Spanish superior and ordinary courts. First, judgments pronounced by Constitutional Court solving defence appeal (recurso de amparo) promoted by applicant, i.e. the requested person as last resource arguing the violation of fundamental rights regulated after the dismissal of prior appeals (cassation included) according to Articles 53 (2) and 163 (1) (b) Spanish Constitution 1978…
Executive Summary
Mar Jimeno-Bulnes
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.
Sweden
Country Research Brief
Christoffer Wong
This country report will therefore concentrate on the very few cases dealing directly with the European arrest warrant that have been taken up by the Supreme Court and published in the annual volume Nytt Juridiskt Arkiv (Law Report of the Supreme Court). All of these cases have concerned the interpretation of the framework decision involving issues of fundamental rights. The presentation of these cases will illustrate the structure of decision-making in a European arrest warrant proceeding in accordance with the Swedish legislation transposing the framework decision. It is the belief of the present author that a close analysis of the legal argumentation in these Supreme Court decisions would best serve the purposes of the Stream project…
Periodic Report
Christoffer Wong
The Supreme Court of Sweden handed down, on 4 April 2023, a decision in a case dealing with the European arrest warrant. This decision is significant not only for the conclusion that the Supreme Court draws on specific points of law; it also shows an emerging general approach by the Supreme Court on matters in the field concer¬ning EU criminal law and has the potential for considerable impact on the treatment of EU criminal law by courts in Sweden. The case started, however, as a routine pro¬cedure pertaining to a European arrest warrant for surrender to Poland for the pur¬pose of prosecution…
The Netherlands
Country Research Brief
Dr. S.S. Buisma; F. Anzovino, LL.M
This STREAM Research Brief follows up on the Periodic Country Report for the Netherlands. It aims to provide an overview of how and the extent to which Rule of Law guarantees and fundamental rights and procedural safeguards that must be protected under EU and national law have been taken into consideration by the Dutch judicial authorities dealing with both the issuing and executing stages of European Arrest Warrant (EAW) proceedings…
Periodic Report
Dr. S.S. Buisman
This Country Report examines the judgements of the District Court published on rechtspraak.nl (database of the Dutch judiciary). In total, 2663 judgements of the District Court concerning the EAW have been published at rechtspraak.nl (reference date 1 December 2021). These judgements have been analysed on several themes, namely: issuing judicial authority, proportionality, case-readiness, pre-trial detention, and fundamental right defences, such as detention facilities, fair trial rights, rule of law standards, and the right to family life. A selection of case law has been made taking into account the following criteria…
Executive Summary
Dr. S.S. Buisma
This STREAM Executive summary offers an overview of the latest questions related to Issuing procedures, exectuing procedures and Key interpretation and implementation challenges.