Spanish and French Justice Ministers strengthen anti-terrorist cooperation on judicial matters

Despite the fact that anti-terrorism collaboration between France and Spain is already highly advanced and that both countries already have judges and public prosecutors with competency throughout their respective national territories who specialise in matters related to terrorism, the goal now is to further align their judicial instruments in the fight against terrorism and shorten any delays in responding to requests for assistance in this area made by the other country as much as possible.

To that end, as requested by Spain on numerous occasions, a mechanism will now be implemented for the consultation and copying of IT data seized in France or Spain during anti-terrorism operations, thus providing a copy thereof to investigators in the other country within the framework of a preliminary investigation.

Furthermore, a joint French-Spanish investigation team will be set up to handle the consultation and copying of the IT data seized during arrests. Through the respective liaison magistrates, constant and complete information will also be provided on the development and results of judicial procedures of common interest.

The agreement signed will also promote closer collaboration between the specialised judges and public prosecutors through exchanges and joint training activities.

In 2003, France and Spain set up joint investigation teams to comprise the framework for increased cooperation between the judicial authorities of the two countries, especially on matters related to the fight against terrorism.

This cooperation is particularly based around the Spanish-French anti-terrorism task force, which has met on 11 occasions since it was set up in 2001 - most recently in Madrid in June. It has enabled the implementation of decisive operations against the terrorist threat to have struck Europe on numerous occasions.

This declaration, which is not only aimed at ETA terrorism but also at all other forms of terrorist activity, such as Islamist terrorism, is intended to provide investigators, as well as the magistrates forming part of the joint investigation team, with direct and immediate access to the evidence used during the judicial proceedings in each of the two countries. This option will be particularly applied to all the IT data obtained during each investigation. This action will be carried out by the anti-terrorism unit of the public prosecution service in Paris and by the judges of the Spanish National High Court.

At the meeting, the ministers also discussed the regulations regarding a European public prosecution service that was presented by the European Commission in July and that was the subject of a joint declaration between France and Germany at the start of the year. The Spanish minister told his French counterpart that he will support the French position for a recognised common public prosecution service created from Eurojust, provided that Eurojust performs an assessment of its activity five years after its creation to establish its effectiveness and efficiency in an operational environment.

The ministers concluded that the joint declaration on the joint investigation teams and their agreement on points of view regarding the future European public prosecution service constitute two important areas of progress within the framework of judicial cooperation in Europe.