JusMin Toader: Justice Ministry officially takes over Presidency of Justice and Home Affairs Council

The Justice Ministry has officially taken over the Presidency of the Justice and Home Affairs Council, Minister Tudorel Toader announced in a post on his Facebook page on Saturday evening according to Agerpres.

According to the source, Minister Tudorel Toader attended the last Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on 6-7 December, under the aegis of the Austrian Presidency. On Friday, at the end of the Justice Session, the Minister of Justice officially took over the Presidency of this formation, to be exercised by Romania as of January 1, 2019.

The Minister of Justice was accompanied at the meeting by the Permanent Representative of Romania to the European Union, Ambassador Luminita Odobescu, as well as by a part of the technical team within the Ministry of Justice and the Permanent Representation of Romania.

"At the meeting, the ministers of justice adopted the general approach on the proposal for a directive regarding the contracts for the sales of goods, the proposal to recast the Brussels IIa Regulation and the proposal for a Regulation on on European Production and Preservation Orders for electronic evidence in criminal matters. The agenda includes information on the state of play of the European Prosecutor's Office, the preparation by the European Commission of the negotiating mandate for the 2nd Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and respectively, an agreement between the EU and US on electronic evidence in criminal matters," reads the same post.

The quoted source also states that, in the margins of the meeting, the Romanian Minister had brief meetings with the Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Vera Jourova, as well as with his counterparts from Austria, Luxembourg and Croatia.

"As the last JHA Council of the Austrian Presidency term, the forthcoming Presidency of Romania of the Council of the European Union presented its priorities in the field of justice for the first semester of 2019, among which: advancing the negotiations on the proposal for a Regulation on Electronic Evidence in Criminal Matters and obtaining the general approach on the proposal for a Directive in the same legislative package, finalizing the Brussels IIa Regulation (recast), appointing the European Chief Prosecutor and strengthening mutual recognition in criminal matters," the post also mentions.