Thinking in 2021 of how best to mark Eurojust’s 20th anniversary, I remember there was no shortage of ideas among colleagues. One of the suggestions we immediately grew fond of was to bring together written contributions from policymakers, academics and a rich assortment of colleagues to lay out how the story – not just of Eurojust, but of judicial cooperation in the European Union in general – has unfolded so far. Compiling this anniversary book has been an enriching exercise, as it sheds light on our work from many different angles at once. But even more than the different perspectives as such, it is the quality – without exception – of the contributions that sets this work apart. I could therefore not be more grateful to all authors for the time and effort they agreed to invest. And I could not be more pleased that the result of this collective effort has found its way to the publisher, and to you.

Ultimately, the story of Eurojust is the result of the need for closer cooperation that was felt among judicial practitioners as the previous century was drawing to a close. In those days, prosecutors were often unsure where to send their letters rogatory but felt safe in their suspicions that a reply would not come soon – if at all. A watershed moment arrived when, in October 1999, the European Council in Tampere (Finland) concluded that To reinforce the fight against serious organised crime, the European Council has agreed that a unit (Eurojust) should be set up (…). Eurojust should have the task of facilitating the proper coordination of national prosecuting authorities and of supporting criminal investigations in organised crime cases (…). As demonstrated by Gilles de Kerchove’s insightful contribution on the genesis of Eurojust earlier in this book, it was an idea that had been pushed previously. History, however, confirms that European cooperation develops in stages rather than following a straight line, and Eurojust seeing the light of day was no exception. It only amplifies the gratitude we feel towards all those colleagues – to Gilles himself, for instance, but in equal measure to Hans Nilsson and many others – for the foresight and perseverance they have shown.

Looking at the year-on-year development of the caseload Eurojust has been entrusted with by Member States, I am proud to say their vision quickly became reality. In its very first year and in a European Union of 15 Member States, Eurojust covered 202 files. The following years saw a steep increase – aided also by consecutive EU enlargements – up to a point when Eurojust serviced 5 608 cases in 2017 and a further rise to 10 105 cases in 2021. This has meant an 80% increase in just four years (2017-2021), and we look forward to sustaining and supporting the growth curve that lies ahead.

However, numbers alone do not fully explain the development of Eurojust and of cross-border judicial cooperation. The countless coordination meetings, coordination centres, conferences and seminars that are conducted at Eurojust not only serve to assist judicial practitioners in their duties, but they also instil a stronger kinship among the community of prosecutors and investigative judges throughout the European Union. This is a qualitative bond that gives us a faster and better understanding of each other’s legal frameworks and requirements. In his article, Judge Bay Larsen, Vice President of the European Court of Justice, offered an excellent summary of the increasing legal complexity that surrounds the principle of mutual recognition in criminal matters and, more specifically, in the execution of European Arrest Warrants. With its in-house legal knowledge and the permanent presence of EU countries’ National Members, Eurojust is much like a hub that gathers Member States’ judicial authorities to support and facilitate work among them.

Beyond the numbers and caseload, another qualitative development I would like to highlight is the new Eurojust Regulation of November 2018, which entered into force in December 2019. It updated our governance structure, it transformed us from the EU’s Judicial Cooperation Unit into the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, but above all, it offered recognition of the continued need for Eurojust and our role in the European Union’s security architecture. As I write these words, the EU Council and European Parliament have just further extended Eurojust’s mandate with a view to preserving, analysing and storing evidence of core international crimes. While this is largely uncharted territory for Eurojust, we will move fast to live up to these new responsibilities. With armed conflicts continuing in various parts of the world, with the war in Ukraine the latest example, this new strand of work will require our urgent focus.

The road ahead promises a number of other developments that will further shape Eurojust as an organisation in years to come. What comes to mind first is the digital shape and form of tomorrow’s criminal justice cooperation, and second, the external dimension of Eurojust’s work. On the first topic, it seems clear that, as our lives increasingly move online, so will criminal justice cooperation. Back in 2018, Eurojust presented to the Council of the European Union the need for a standardised set of digital tools to support cross-border judicial cooperation. In the meantime, the legislative process has been set in motion, and we look forward to a future in which Member States and Eurojust will have equal access to secure e-applications that will define the face of tomorrow’s criminal justice cooperation.

The second topic is linked to our work with partner countries outside the European Union. With the advent of Eurojust (2002), the European Arrest Warrant (2002), the European Investigation Order (2014) and the Freezing and Confiscation Order (2018), European judicial cooperation has taken an important turn during the past 20 years. It has also been a time in which Eurojust concluded 13 operational cooperation agreements with a geographically diverse range of countries, from the United States of America to Georgia. In the period that lies ahead, it is our ambition to substantially widen our network with third countries and to welcome additional Liaison Prosecutors to Eurojust to join the 10 colleagues we already host at our premises in The Hague.

If the past is any predictor of the future, I imagine Eurojust’s next 20 years will look very different from our experiences so far. With the invaluable support and expertise of policymakers, academics, data protection professionals and, most importantly, the judicial practitioners who decide to place their trust in us, I believe there is important room left to strengthen Eurojust’s role. Our ambition will always be to provide the best possible operational support to prosecutors in the field while remaining at the forefront of major new developments in the field of cross-border judicial cooperation.

If we collectively agree to continue on this course, I have no doubt that the words of EU Commissioner Reynders will hold true in the future as much as they do now, when he wrote in his introduction (…) this is also a story of an organisation that has, from the very beginning, been over-delivering.

In gratitude to all Eurojust colleagues, past and present,