Objectives
Training of justice professionals on EU law is an essential tool to ensure the correct and effective application of EU law, to foster mutual trust among justice professionals in cross-border proceedings and to support the implementation of the EU values and principles, such as the rule of law.
After the great progress made since the adoption of the European judicial training strategy for 2011-2020, the European Commission has put in motion a new comprehensive judicial training package. The package to modernise justice adopted on 2 December 2020, includes a new European judicial training strategy for 2021-2024, the 9th annual report 2020 on European Judicial training of Directorate-General Justice and Consumers and the launch of the European Training Platform (ETP) on the European e-Justice Portal.
The European judicial training strategy for 2021-2024
The new strategy and its accompanying tools aim to support even more justice systems and justice professionals, making them fit for the challenges of the 21st century and the constant developments of EU law.
The new strategy sets new ambitious training goals and new priorities:
- The new strategy sets new operational objectives tailored for the needs of different justice profession.
- It focuses on a broader target audience and a new geographical scope to address the new challenges in accordance with the needs of justice professionals.
- Judicial training should even more promote the common rule of law culture, uphold fundamental rights, upscale the digitalisation of justice and go beyond legal education and support the development of professional skills, while ensuring that new training offers are quickly made available in answer to new training needs.
- The priority is training of judges and prosecutors but all justice professionals are concerned: court staff, lawyers, notaries, bailiffs, mediators, legal interpreters and translators, court experts, and in certain situations prison staff and probation officers. In particular, court staff and lawyers’ training is lagging behind and should be addressed. Prison staff and probation officers are a new target audience that was not covered by the previous strategy.
- The strategy focuses on the EU justice professionals but it also supports Western Balkans prospects of EU membership and non-European countries, in particular in Africa and Latin America, in strengthening democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
- The European Commission will support high quality cross-border training projects on EU law using the different EU funds available, such as the future Justice and Citizenship, Equality, Rights and Values programmes.
European Commission online conference ‘Closing Conference of the project: CJEU Hearings’ Recording as a Judicial Training Tool’ 07 March 2024
On 7 March, the European Commission, in partnership with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) and the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), organised a conference promoting training videos for justice professionals on the CJEU. Videos discuss the mission, jurisdiction, procedures and proceedings of the Court of Justice. These 6 videos are available on the European Training Platform (ETP), and on the European Union Academy Platform (EU Academy). They provide a great potential for initial and in-service training of justice professionals, both at national and European level.
High-level EU conference “Judicial Training: The right skills to embrace digitalisation of Justice” 26/28 April 2023
The conference addresses those in charge of training for judges, prosecutors, court and prosecution office staff, lawyers, notaries, bailiffs, prison and probation staff in the EU Member States, the candidate and potential candidate countries. It focuses in depth on the digitalisation of justice, one of the priorities set by the European judicial training strategy 2021-2024.
During 26 specialised workshops and in the plenary, the conference discusses how to upskill the “digital capacity” of justice professionals, allowing to learn about the impact of digitalisation on the content of training and the training methodology itself. It gives possibility to exchange on the concrete training needs and experience examples of best practice.
Link to the conference website: https://judicialtrainingdigitalisation.eu/
High-level EU judicial training conference on initial training and the respect for the rule of law 22/23 February 2022
As another very important step in the implementation of the European judicial training strategy for 2021-2024, the French Presidency of the Council of the EU, the École Nationale de la Magistrature (ENM) and the European Commission jointly held a high-level two-day hybrid conference in Bordeaux on 22 - 23 February. The conference, entitled ‘Initial Training of Justice Professionals Serving the Rule of Law’, was devoted to judicial initial training and the respect for the rule of law within the European Union, in particular for magistrates and lawyers. To learn more about the conference, its lively discussions in plenary sessions and in numerous working groups, and about the concrete follow-up actions concluded during the conference, have a look at the conference report:
High-level digital conference on European judicial training 6/7 May 2021
As a major milestone in the dissemination and implementation of the new European judicial training strategy for 2021-2024, the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of EU, the Centro de Estudos Judiciários (CEJ) of Portugal and the European Commission jointly held a high-level digital conference entitled ‘Modernising EU Justice Systems by boosting training of justice professionals’ on 06 and 07 May 2021.To learn more about the conference and its fruitful discussions and debates have a look at the conference report:
Evaluation of the 2011-2020 European judicial training strategy
The evaluation of the 2011-2020 European judicial training strategy adopted in 2019 showed that the objectives were overall achieved in an efficient manner. The strategy has helped to increase the number of training activities, but also promoted new types of activity, such as exchange programmes. The 2011 Communication’s main objective, that half (800.000) of all EU justice professionals should attend training on EU law between 2011 and 2020, was already reached in 2017, two years ahead of schedule. It has helped improve training on EU law for several categories of justice professionals, especially judges and prosecutors. It has also built the capacities of networks such as the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) and reinforced EU level networks and training providers.
Training opportunities on the European e-Justice Portal
You are a justice professional? You are interested in training yourself on EU Law? Visit the new European Training Platform (ETP) on the Portal. The ETP is a search tool that enables justice professionals to find training courses on EU law organised in the EU and training material to train themselves. The Commission contributes to the platform with up-to-date and ready-to-use training materials or handbooks produced notably thanks to EU financial support. The first phase of the ETP is launched with the participation of recognised EU level training providers: the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN), the Academy of European Law (ERA), the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) and the European University Institute (EUI).
The European judicial training policy and the annual reports
Visit the European judicial training pages of the European e-Justice Portal if you want to know more about the European judicial training policy and its actors.
To know more about the level of participation of justice professionals in judicial training on EU law, have a look at the yearly statistical reports on the e-Justice Portal. The annual statistical reports measure the participation of justice professionals in judicial training on EU law in the EU and help to monitor the great progress made.
Good training practices
Training providers and trainers will find factsheets describing good practices in training judges and prosecutors on the e-Justice Portal. The practices cover a wide range of topics, from training needs assessment to training delivery and evaluation.
Financial support
Training activities are supported through grants. More information about EU financial support may be found here: