Spaans voorzitterschap wil bescherming slachtoffers van misdaden versterken (en)

The Spanish Minister for Justice, Francisco Caamaño.

The Spanish Presidency of the European Union has also proposed strengthening protection and support for victims of crime, especially for victims of gender-based violence.

The Spanish Minister for Justice, Francisco Caamaño, urged the Commission and the Parliament to work towards a quick implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Stockholm Programme to improve legal certainty for EU citizens.

In his appearance before the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament he gave a list of pending cases, initiatives in progress and proposals in order to continue progressing and harmonising legislation.

“All of which will require greater dialogue and the intensification of efforts”, warned the Minister, for whom the priority is to avoid “the Treaty of Lisbon resulting in unnecessary stoppages in important matters”.

He highlighted the importance of continuing to make progress in the legislative harmonisation in general procedural guarantees and rights in order to apply the existing criminal legal cooperation instruments in a better and more effective way.

He also expressed his conviction that a proposal on passenger registration (PNR) will be available "as soon as possible", something which will require “finding the right balance between security needs that we believe exist and that justify the measures, and the need for personal data protection”.

One of the "main priorities" of the Spanish Presidency in terms of judicial cooperation is to "focus attention on the victims, often unjustly forgotten, with the aim of improving their protection and support”.

The other priority he highlighted was to “optimise the use of information and communication technology in the administration of justice”.

Initiatives for this area include the setting up of a European e-justice portal or mechanisms to strengthen judicial cooperation with third countries, especially the United States.

This afternoon, the minister has spoken to the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), where he said that the Spanish Presidency “is built on the driving forces of equality and innovation” with the aim of providing increasingly more protection in various common regulations of international private law in cross-border matters regarding personal and family life.

Caamaño underlined the need to develop a system that

“harmonises, clarifies and gives legal certainty” to matters regarding inheritance and wills, and the marital financial system, among others.

The minister also underlined Spain's readiness to promote the directive on criminal penalties for infringing intellectual property “as soon as the Committee presents the proposal” and stressed the efforts that the Spanish Presidency will make to build an online legal system, via the e-Justice portal, that is accessible and useful for everybody, with a view to creating a European legal space.