In order to help shape the future, it is sometimes helpful to look at the past. The past 12 months have been a year of new initiatives and a continued high number of cases at Eurojust, and I therefore could not be more proud to introduce you to our Annual Report 2024. This marks my first as President of Eurojust since taking office in November, and I look very much forward to the journey ahead.

‘The opportunity is in the partnership’, the saying often goes, and this surely extends to international judicial cooperation. Last year alone, Eurojust supported no less than 12 972 ongoing investigations of which 5 363 were newly registered. One of our core tasks is to be a forum where prosecutors and judges meet to coordinate investigations and prosecution strategies. I am therefore especially happy to report on the 640 Coordination Meetings Eurojust hosted, representing an 11% increase in the number of meetings we had compared to the previous year. 

Together with the 361 Joint Investigation Teams we supported – 25% more compared to those supported in 2023 – Eurojust offers a solid basis to help judicial authorities in Member States and beyond get justice done. As in previous years, our accountability efforts in relation to the war in Ukraine remain unwavering. This includes, in particular, our support to the Joint Investigation Team on war crimes, the Core International Crimes Evidence Database (CICED) and the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine (ICPA).

Furthermore, 2024 has also been a year in which we have grown our network with partners to expand our service delivery to judicial professionals. I think, for instance, of the international agreements on cooperation with Eurojust which have been signed with Armenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and of the Working Arrangements we signed with Prosecutors General from six Latin American countries. The needs of prosecutors and judges across the European Union are what matter most to us at Eurojust, and they will continue to direct our next steps in further developing our network.

Eurojust’s work is anchored in values of partnership and the rule-of-law. Our success is not just ours, but very much a collective one that we share with prosecutors and judges across the continent. I therefore want to thank all our partners for their continued support to Eurojust’s mission and I look forward to much more to come in 2025!

Michael Schmid

President of Eurojust