On 30 June 2023, the term of the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU (→eucrim news of 3 February 2023) ended with the handing over of the Presidency to Spain as of 1 July 2023. A scoreboard with all 321 decisions and agreements on EU laws and other texts that were finalised by the Swedish Presidency can be found here.

In the area of Justice and Home Affairs, the Swedish Presidency maintained a continuous dialogue in the JHA Council on the consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine for internal security (→ eucrim news of 12 July 2023). Sweden also undertook efforts to fight organised crime in several areas. For instance, final agreements could be reached on the following:

• The Regulation establishing a collaboration platform to support the functioning of joint investigation teams (→eucrim news of 29 January 2022);
• The Directive on the exchange of information between the law enforcement authorities of Member States (IED) (→ eucrim spotlight of 12 July 2023);
• The e-evidence Regulation.

Negotiations have begun on the Directive on the transfer of criminal proceedings (→ eucrim news of 11 July 2023), and general approaches have been reached on the following directives:

• The Directive on asset recovery and confiscation (→ eucrim 2/2022, 76);
• The Directive on trafficking in human beings;
• The Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence.

Political agreement with the European Parliament was achieved in the following matters:

• The Directive on the stronger mandate of the EU Drugs Agency;
• Law enforcement agencies’ access to bank account registers;
• The digitalisation of judicial cooperation.

In addition, conclusions on an action plan for future European forensic cooperation and on measures to combat illicit trafficking in cultural goods were able to be adopted. The JHA Council has also advanced the negotiations on the legal instrument to combat child sexual abuse online (→ eucrim 2/2022, 91-92). Lastly, a high-level group was tasked with addressing operational challenges as regards law enforcement access to digital information.