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Against the background of continuous attacks on lawyers, the French Council Presidency initiated a debate on protecting access to lawyers and the rule of law. In a discussion paper of 17 February 2022, the Presidency stressed the importance of the independence and professional integrity …

On 4 March 2022, the Justice Ministers of the EU Member States discussed the Commission’s initiative of December 2021 to include hate speech and hate crime into the list of EU crimes in Art. 83 TFEU (→ eucrim 4/2021, 221). According to the Council’s …

On 3 March 2022, the Ministers of the Interior of the Member States of the European Union and Ministers in charge of security matters of the Member States of the Latin American Committee for Internal Security (CLASI) adopted a joint declaration on the fight against …

On 3 March 2022, the Justice and Home Affairs Council agreed on a general approach regarding the reform of the specific Schengen evaluation and monitoring mechanism (for the Commission proposal → eucrim 2/2021, 76). The new rules will speed up and simplify the evaluation …

The European Chief Prosecutor informed the Commission of Poland's systematic refusal to cooperate with the EPPO. Poland has refused to apply the regular, binding EU judicial cooperation instruments as well as to sign a working arrangement with the new EU body for tackling crimes against the EU's financial interests.

OLAF and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) signed a new Service-Level Agreement. It foresees, inter alia, the development of an IT tool, which will make it easier to share and analyse data related to counterfeiting cases at EU level.

On 11 February 2022, OLAF reported that it signed a cooperation arrangement with the Office of the Prosecutor General of Hungary. The arrangement lays down practical modalities for closer cooperation in order to protect EU funds from potential fraud in the country.

On 23 February 2022, OLAF informed of the results of its operations against tobacco smuggling in 2021 (for the results in 2020 → eucrim 1/2021, 14). In 2021, world-wide operations involving OLAF were able to seize over 430 million illicit cigarettes in total. The …

On 16 February 2022, a joint operation between OLAF and the Polish police dismantled a gang that dealt with counterfeit medical products, such as medicine to treat erectile dysfunction, anabolic substances and growth hormones. The value of the seized goods is estimated at almost €9 …

On 19 January 2022, OLAF reported on the results of a joint investigation team (JIT) involving OLAF, the Romanian National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) and the Prosecution Office of the Italian commune of Enna. The investigations revealed practices of a criminal group that defrauded EU agricultural …