After France, the Czech Republic held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from 1 July to 31 December 2022. Sweden is the third Presidency of the current trio of presidencies and commenced its Council Presidency on 1 January 2023 (for the Swedish programme in JHA → separate news item).

While the original programme of the trio of presidencies of the Council of the EU (→eucrim 4/2021, p. 207) focused on strengthening the Schengen area as well as on money laundering and corruption, the Czech Council Presidency was marked, in particular, by the Russian aggression against Ukraine, especially with regard to energy issues. In the area of of Justice and Home Affairs, the following results could be achieved:

Under the Czech Presidency, the decision to enlarge the Schengen area to include Croatia could be taken (→ eucrim news of 14 December 2022). Hence, land border controls between Croatia and neighbouring Schengen countries have been abolished as of 1 January 2023. The Czech Presidency also focused intensively on implementation of the interoperability of large-scale EU information systems in the area of freedom, security and justice.

Progress was achieved in the negotiation of legislation on the following dossiers:

• The proposal for preventing and combating child sexual abuse;
• The proposal for a Directive on protection of the environment through criminal law;
• The proposal for a Directive on the exchange of information between law enforcement authorities of the Member States of the EU.

Finally, political agreement could be reached for the future legal framework on e-evidence (→eucrim news of 7 April 2022).