The Ministers of Justice of the European Union (EU) have held an informal meeting within the program of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The working sessions were chaired by the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop. The European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, also participated in the meeting.

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EU justice ministers

In the first working session, the ministers addressed accessibility to justice, especially for people with disabilities, with the aim of ensuring the elimination of barriers that prevent them from participating in the administration of justice on equal terms.

In this line, they have also raised the need to transform the legal language to provide it with more clarity, make it more understandable to citizens and adapt it to the diversity of European societies.

For his part, Llop referred to accessibility in relation to digitalization: “European Justice has to put people at the centre and for this it has to ensure that new technologies are not a factor of exclusion but an engine of rapprochement”.

During the second session, they worked on improving care for victims of crime, especially in crimes such as the exploitation of minors, violence against women or terrorism.

“The area of freedom, security and justice would be incomplete if, even if the crime were prosecuted and punished, victims were not adequately protected and provided with the means to restore their rights,” the minister explained to her European counterparts.

The fight against organized crime
The last session dealt with the elaboration of a common strategy in the fight against organized crime, focusing on the need to exhaust its financing channels. To this end, they proposed a common policy on the seizure of crypto-assets, a growing source of financing among criminal gangs operating in Europe.

Likewise, they stressed the importance of increasing cooperation between the agents involved in the fight against organized crime, especially with private entities, whose perspective can bring added value, since there are certain sectors especially used by organized crime for the execution of its activity.