The European Parliament adopted by 560 votes to 17, with 18 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1727 of the European Parliament and the Council, as regards the collection, preservation and analysis of evidence relating to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes at Eurojust.
The European Parliament's first reading position under the ordinary legislative procedure amends the Commission proposal as follows:
The amending Regulation will enable Eurojust to preserve, analyse and store evidence relating to genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and related criminal offences, to enable the exchange of such evidence with, or otherwise making it directly available to, competent national authorities and international judicial authorities, in particular the International Criminal Court.
However, the Regulation does not create any obligation for national authorities to share evidence with Eurojust.
In order to effectively support the case management in national and international investigations and to provide additional support to the competent prosecution authorities, the proposal provides for the establishment of an automated data management and storage facility outside the case management system.
The automated data management and storage facility will have to meet the highest standards of cyber security.
The data protection provisions laid down in the Regulation and in Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 will apply to the processing of data in the automated data management and storage facility insofar as they do not directly concern the technical configuration of the case management system. The access rights to the data stored in the automated data management and storage facility as well as the time limits for the storage of these data will have to be in line with the applicable rules on access to the temporary work files supporting the data, and the respective storage periods.
The proposal also aims to extend the categories of data that Eurojust can legally process to include video and audio recordings as well as satellite images and all relevant photographs.
The Regulation should enter into force as a matter of urgency on the day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union in order to urgently make available a new automated data management and storage facility at Eurojust for the preservation, analysis and storage of evidence relating to genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and related criminal offences with a view to ensuring accountability for such crimes committed in Ukraine.