On 5 November 2019, Eurojust and the European Judicial Network (EJN) published a joint report with the aim of assisting practitioners in determining whether a case should be directed to Eurojust or to the EJN.

The report outlines the following items:

• Criteria for assessing which agency should deal with a request for assistance;
• Use of the updated 2018 Joint Paper on the EJN and Eurojust “What can we do for you?” for redirecting cases;
• Steps to be taken upon receipt of a request from national authorities when it appears to be better suited to the another’s competence;
• Steps to be taken by a national desk at Eurojust upon receipt of a request from another national desk that appears to better fall under the EJN’s competence;
• Existence of national rules preventing the national desks at Eurojust from redirecting a case to the EJN once the case has been opened at Eurojust;
• Steps to be taken when a request has been addressed to both a national desk at Eurojust and an EJN contact point;
• Use of the Eurojust National Coordination System for case-distribution purposes;
• Added value of the EJN-Eurojust double-hat function to the distribution of cases;
• Liaison between the national desks at Eurojust and EJN contact points, with a view to reaching a common approach on complementarity;
• Best practices.

The report highlights that the assessment of whether a request should be dealt with by Eurojust or the EJN should be made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account first the complexity of the case, followed by its urgency, as the main criteria.