TRIANGLE-EU: Enhancing Mutual Recognition and Prosecution in the EU as an Alternative to Extradition of EU Citizens to Third States

Background & Context

The extradition of EU citizens to third States raises complex legal and practical questions at the intersection of primary EU law and classic international cooperation in criminal matters. In the Petruhhin ruling in 2016 the CJEU held that a Member State will – but will only – have a duty under EU law to refuse the extradition of a national of another Member State if the objective of avoiding impunity is possible to attain within the Union, which normally requires using the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). However, only seldom have Member States actually prioritised the EAW over extradition, which is detrimental to the freedom of movement and the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of nationality. Triangle-EU addresses this problem by analysing the difficulties of prosecuting such cases in the EU, gathering legal and practical data on all Member States and on a set of third States through national experts, curating and organising this data and conveying it to target groups (judicial authorities, defence lawyers, academic networks) in a systematised and easy-to-interpret way.

Objectives

TRIANGLE-EU aims to:

• Provide an analysis of the law and practice of Member States on extradition of EU citizens to third States
• Develop evidence-based solutions to the identified problems and challenges
• Offer comprehensive, accurate and enduring resources
• Devise practical recommendations and best practices for legal practitioners, scholars and policymakers
• Strengthen mutual recognition in order to promote free movement and equal treatment within the EU

Research Design

The project is structured in five essential layers:

• Data collection through questionnaires addressed to national experts (scholars as well as practitioners)
• In-depth analysis of the collected information, determining Member States’ and third States’ profiles according to their legislation and practice
• Development of guidelines on how to proceed in extradition to third States cases under existing legal and factual conditions
• Engagement of stakeholders in all layers of the project in order to discuss findings and refine recommendations
• Dissemination of the outputs of the project with a view to maximising their impact

Expected Impact

Triangle-EU aims to produce an impact in the short, the medium and the long terms. Its target groups are legal professionals dealing with extradition requests by third States for EU citizens of other Member States, who will be provided with detailed yet easy to interpret information on that subject-matter:

• defence lawyers will be empowered to intervene more actively towards the adjudication of the cases within the EU rather in a third State;
• prosecutorial authorities benefit from the collaboration of other actors towards prosecution in the EU;
• any judicial authority, including courts, will benefit from having at their disposal information, case law and legal literature on this specific segment of EU law when dealing with such cases.

More generally EU citizens are beneficiaries of this project, as they are enabled to exercise their freedom of movement in the EU without exposure to external criminal justice systems where fundamental rights granted by EU law are not applicable. Academics and researchers also benefit from the provided comparison of different legal systems (both of Member States and third States), and are enabled to produce further research on this emerging area within EU law.