As the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is preventing the country from storing and preserving evidence on war crimes, such evidence must be stored outside Ukraine in order to ensure accountability for these crimes. For this reason, on 25 April 2022, the European Commission submitted a proposal amending the Eurojust Regulation with the aim of giving Eurojust the legal possibility to collect, preserve, and share evidence on war crimes. Under its current Regulation, Eurojust is neither allowed to preserve evidence on core international crimes on a more permanent basis, nor to analyse and exchange such evidence when necessary, or even to directly cooperate with international judicial authorities such as the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The amendment to the Eurojust Regulation was quickly adopted: The European Parliament approved it on 19 May 2022. The Council adopted it on 25 May 2022. Regulation (EU) 2022/838 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2022 amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1727 as regards the preservation, analysis and storage at Eurojust of evidence relating to genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and related criminal offences was published in the Official Journal L 148 of 31 May 2022. Thus, from 1 June 2022 on, Eurojust is able to collect, analyse and preserve evidence related to core international crimes and process data such as videos, audio recordings and satellite images. Eurojust is empowered to share such evidence with national and international authorities. Eurojust can also establish an automated data management and storage facility separate from its case management system for the purpose of fulfilling its new tasks.