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(from https://www.ejn-crimjust.europa.eu/ejn//NewsDetail/EN/718/H)  

 On 2 July 2020, the European Commission published a report assessing the transposition of the European arrest warrant in 27 Member States and the UK from 2004 until now. According to the Commission, the general assessment demonstrates that the European Arrest Warrant remains an essential tool in the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters. However, the assessment of national implementing measures also revealed a number of compliance issues. This concerns in particular additional grounds for refusal and non-observation of time limits. Unless remedied, such deficiencies may limit the effectiveness of the European arrest warrant.

The report shows that some Member States have not yet modified their legislation to comply with a series of judgments of the Court of Justice, which aim to clarify the functioning of the European arrest warrant. The number of preliminary references to the Court of Justice on the European arrest warrant has rapidly increased over the last years, from 12 in 2014 to more than 50 by the mid-2020. This is due to the lifting, on 1 December 2014, of the limitations of the judicial control by the Court of Justice in the area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, as previously laid down in the Maastricht Treaty.

In addition to this report, the European Commission also published key statistics on the EAW for 2018. With 17,471 warrants issued in 2018 in 27 Member States, the figure is close to the figure for 2017 when 17,491 warrants were issued in 28 Member States. In 2018, almost 7,000 requested persons were surrendered across borders. Overall, since 2005, 185,575 European Arrest Warrants were issued and 56,298 of these were executed according to the report. As in previous years, the most commonly identified categories were theft offences and criminal damage (2893 European arrest warrants), fraud and corruption offences (1739) and drug offences (1610). From the arrest to the decision on surrender, it takes on average 16 days when the person consents to their surrender and 45 days when the person does not consent.

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