4.05.2017. The Minister of Justice Urmas Reinsalu makes preparations for the Estonian presidency of the EU Council and meets in Brussels the key persons of the European Commission and the European Parliament in the field of justice. Today the Minister met Claude Moraes, member of the European Parliament.
At the meeting with Claude Moraes, member of the European Parliament and Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, the criminal policy topics were primarily discussed. The Minister highlighted Estonia’s interest in continuing the proceedings concerning the pending draft legislation, in particular the legislation of ECRIS, information system for exchanging information on criminalisation of money laundering crimes and on criminal convictions. The Minister of Justice also stressed the importance of preserving e-evidence and communication data in the fight against terrorism.
In addition to the Money Laundering Directive, the Eurojust Regulation was another important topic that was being discussed. “I expressed my hope to the member the European Parliament that the reports of the European Parliament on these files will be completed quickly so that Estonia could work with these reports more actively during the presidency,” said the Minister of Justice Urmas Reinsalu.
“We also discussed the development of the European Criminal Records Information System ECRIS with the member of the European Parliament Claude Moraes. Namely, it is possible to exchange information on criminal convictions of the Member States’ nationals already now. The future objective is a central database which would also include the information on criminal convictions of third-country nationals and stateless persons together with their fingerprints. This way, we could quickly obtain information on all persons who have committed criminal offences in Europe,” explained the Minister.
Today the Minister of Justice Urmas Reinsalu is also planning to meet Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the EU Commission. Yesterday the Minister met Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship.