Justice Programme - Performance

Programme in a nutshell

Concrete examples of achievements (*)

Budget for 2021-2027

^{(*) Only Article 15(3) of the financial regulation.}

Rationale and design of the programme

The Justice programme supports a broad range of beneficiaries that play an important role in the development of an EU area of justice. This includes, primarily, members of the judiciary and judicial staff, but also public authorities, academic/research institutes and training bodies, along with civil-society and non-profit organisations.

Budget

Budget programming (million EUR):

^{(*) Only Article 15(3) of the financial regulation.}

  Financial programming:
  - EUR 5.7 million (- 2%)
  compared to the legal basis*

* Top-ups pursuant to Art. 5 MFF regulation are excluded from financial programming in this comparison.

Budget performance – implementation

Multiannual cumulative implementation rate at the end of 2022 (million EUR):

Annual voted budget implementation (million EUR)⁽¹⁾:

^{(1) Voted appropriations (C1) only.}

Contribution to horizontal priorities

Green budgeting

Contribution to green budgeting priorities (million EUR):

• In general, all of the projects funded under the Justice programme must comply with EU policy interests and priorities, including in the environment field. Beneficiaries are strongly invited to limit the number of people from each co-beneficiary for in-person meetings, to organise project meetings with partners in blended ways (in person, online and hybrid) and to prefer rail travel when it can be an efficient alternative to air travel.
• In 2022, only one project funded under the call for proposals on judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters was focused on climate and the environment. The ‘Coopération pour la protection de l’environnement par les inspections de la justice’ (COPEIJ) project, with a budget of EUR 0.1 million, will support and promote the effectiveness of environmental protection by criminal justice in the EU justice area at the stages of prevention, sanction and reparation of environmental damage by involving national inspections services (at the local, national and cross-border levels) in the context of the revision of the 2008 directive ⁽¹⁾ on the protection of the environment through criminal law.
• In 2022, several procurement contracts contributed to the ‘do no harm’ principle based on their implementation methods (such as online meetings, information technology contracts, web application contracts); no procurement contract was identified as contributing to climate/environmental goals based on the content.

^{(1) Directive 2008/99/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on the protection of the environment though criminal law.}

Gender

Contribution to gender equality (million EUR) (*):

<sup>(*) Based on the applied gender contribution methodology, the following scores are attributed at the most granular level of intervention possible:
- 2: interventions the principal objective of which is to improve gender equality;
- 1: interventions that have gender equality as an important and deliberate objective but not as the main reason for the intervention;
- 0: non-targeted interventions (interventions that are expected to have no significant bearing on gender equality);
- 0*: score to be assigned to interventions with a likely but not yet clear positive impact on gender equality.</sup>

The justice programme regulation stipulates in article 4 that gender equality should be promoted in all funded activities. Paragraph 18 of the regulation complements article 4 by underlining the importance of gender mainstreaming in all programme activities and the programme’s commitment to evaluate its gender impacts. Thus, gender quality and mainstreaming are cross-cutting themes.

A key area for advancing gender equality is the promotion of victims’ rights under the specific objective ‘Access to justice for all’. Gender-sensitive support to victims of crimes such as hate crimes, trafficking in human beings and gender-based violence is essential to enable victims to know and exercise their rights. To a lesser extent, judicial cooperation can also promote gender equality. For example, the social rehabilitation and reintegration of people who are subject to measures in the field of judicial cooperation in criminal matters provides scope to provide gender-sensitive support. Judicial cooperation in civil matters also has the potential to promote gender equality, for example by providing legal insights into and raising awareness among professionals of the phenomenon of social parenthood. Judicial training also has the potential to raise awareness of gender inequalities among legal professionals. As a result, judicial training can help judges interpret EU directives, where relevant, in a gender-sensitive way.

Key achievements:

• The 2022 calls were systematically gender-mainstreamed. Applicants were asked to demonstrate in their proposals how a gender equality perspective was incorporated at the design stage and how it will be ensured during project implementation. They were also asked to outline how gender equality is tracked in their project monitoring and results, and to ensure a gender-sensitive approach for the identification of best practices, data collection and information dissemination. This resulted in stronger attention of applicants to gender equality aspects in the design of their projects.
• Gender equality was mainstreamed in the evaluation methodology, criteria and templates for justice calls. As a result, applicants’ attention to gender aspects in their proposals has a direct impact on their performance in the evaluation.
• Improved collection of data through ‘PART C’ of the application form, facilitating the collection of estimated sex-disaggregated data.
• The contracted external experts in charge of evaluating proposals were made aware of the central role of gender equality and briefed on the gender equality tracking methodology. As a result, the Justice programme contributed to capacity-building among experts that work across different Commission funding programmes.

Contributions from grants:

In total, EUR 28.2 million were provided via grants.

Gender score 2:

The specific objectives of the Justice programme are rather technical in nature and focus on legal instruments and procedures. As a result, the programme does not always have an obvious link to gender equality. This partially explains why no grant funded under the programme received a score of 2. Another element that should be considered is that there was no dedicated call promoting victims’ rights in 2022. As mentioned above, the topic of this call has more potential for advancing gender equality. No procurement action has received a score of 2 due to the technical nature of activities funded.

Gender score 1:

About 19% of the funding from grants, or EUR 5.3 million, received a score of 1. Grants funded under the specific objective ‘Judicial cooperation’ contributed strongly to this score, with EUR 2.0 million from action grants. The operating grants promoting judicial cooperation and access to justice also promoted gender equality with EUR 1.9 million. This can be explained by the thematic focus that includes topics such as detention conditions, rehabilitation of detainees and mutual recognition instruments in family law. The procurement action funding the online EU centre for expertise for victims of terrorism contributes to this category with EUR 1.7 million. This corresponds to around one quarter of the procurement budget.

Gender score 0*

The majority of funds implemented via grants, around 54% or EUR 18.9 million, received a score of 0*. A particularly large contribution to this score comes from the operating grant to the European Judicial Training Network (EUR 11.2 million). Training sessions funded by the Justice programme provide a scope to address gender-related issues in judicial proceedings and the interpretation of EU law. They can help judges, advocates general, magistrates, bailiffs and other judicial practitioners to build gender expertise. However, as the trainings first and foremost focus on EU law and its homogenous interpretation, there is potential for training sessions to further integrate a gender perspective. Around one quarter of the procurement budget or EUR 1.7 million fall under this category. This is linked to the awareness campaign on the rule of law that was conducted and helped EU citizens to be aware of their rights.

Gender score 0:

With 20% of funds or EUR 5.6 million labelled with the score 0, the Justice programme’s technical nature is underlined. This amount can be partially explained by the information technology focus of the e-Justice projects funded by the programme. These projects aim to create digital infrastructure and seek to connect different information technology systems with each other, in order to facilitate exchange and use data across different platforms ‘interoperationally’. Another explanation for the funding reported under this score is the technical nature of legal instruments that are supported by the programme, such as the European Arrest Warrant. The largest part of the procurement activities, around 71% or EUR 4.5 million, fall under this score as many technical experts for maintaining information technology platforms were contracted.

Contributions from procurement:

In total, EUR 6.3 million were provided via procurement.

The evaluation of procurement projects is more complicated. Procurement procedures have not yet been adjusted to the gender equality tracking methodology. While the process has started to also introduce a gender perspective into procurement activities, the data are not as reliable at the same level of granularity as the data collected from grants. Therefore, an estimate of the procurement activities’ gender score based on their programming seems most feasible.

The following observations need to be understood as estimates based on procurement’s thematic focus:

Gender score 2:

The same clarifications mentioned above for grants applies to procurement.

Gender score 1:

Procurement activities, such as the organisation of workshops on the protection of vulnerable adults, contributed to this score. However, this part of the procurement budget is small and accounts only for around 3%.

Gender score 0*:

Around 20% of the procurement budget qualifies for a score of 0*. This entire amount, approximately EUR 1.3 million, is linked to an awareness-raising campaign on the rule of law in the EU.

Gender score 0:

Most procurement activities are very technical, such as the maintenance of information technology portals and databases. As a result, 75% of the procurement budget or EUR 4.5 million falls under this category.

Digital

Contribution to digital transition (million EUR):

Contributing to the digital transition is one of the objectives of the Justice programme.

The Justice programme supports:

• actions aiming to improve the effectiveness of justice systems in the EU and facilitate access to justice for all by using electronic means (e-Justice);
• actions aiming to achieve the objectives of the Commission communication on the digitalisation of justice in the European Union and the Council e-Justice strategy and action plan 2019-2023 by supporting the implementation of e-Justice projects at the EU and national levels, as far as they have an EU dimension;
• Member States joining existing or ongoing e-Justice projects, such as the digitalisation of the European Small Claims and European Payment Order procedures, iSupport, the e-Evidence Digital Exchange System, the European case law identifier and interconnection with the search engine on the e-Justice Portal;
• the maintenance of the e-Justice Portal;
• the development of digital skills for legal professionals and other target groups and the digitalisation of training, both in terms of content and methodology;
• actions developing concrete use cases based on artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology in the justice area.

Procurement contribution to digital:

In 2021, EUR 3.9 million were used to finance, among others, information and communication technology contracts, the e-Justice Portal, a study on national digital public services in the justice field and a Digital Justice Ministerial Forum.

In 2022, EUR 3.5 million were used to finance, among others, information and communication technology contracts, expert group meetings on digital criminal justice, the e-Justice Portal, e-learning training on EU law and a conference about the digitalisation of justice.

For the procurement activities, the amounts indicated for both 2021 and 2022 are only the ones already committed. According to the 2022 justice work programme, EUR 4.3 million are foreseen for procurement linked to the digitalisation of justice, so the final amount is expected to increase. It is also important to consider that the total available budget of the programme in 2021 was higher, so the digital contribution of the programme in 2022 is expected to be lower than in 2021.

Above all, the Justice programme is monitoring if and how inflation will impact information technology expenditures in 2023. The budget will be reshuffled if necessary to respond to new emerging needs.

Concerning projects that support the development of digital skills for legal professionals or other target groups (always linked to the digitalisation of justice), the following results have been achieved:

Year 2021:

• Under the 2021 call for proposals for action grants to support transnational projects on training of justice professionals covering civil law, criminal law or fundamental rights (JTRA 2021), the ‘Enhancing proficiency of insolvency practitioners in applying EU law and fostering trust and understanding of European judicial culture via participatory training approach and blended learning’ (InsolEuPro) project (budget requested: EUR 0.4 million) will also organise training for insolvency practitioners on digital tools for practice and communication between insolvency practitioners from various EU Member States. Under the same call, the ‘Preparing criminal justice professionals to address new (post)pandemic challenges as a result of criminals’ new modi operandi’ (PostCovid challenges) project (budget requested: EUR 0.3 million) will also train EU legal practitioners on the basics of digital forensics.
• Under the 2021 call for proposals for action grants to promote judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters (JCOO 2021), the ‘Digital communication and safeguarding the parties’ rights: challenges for European civil procedure’ (DIGI-GUARD) project (budget requested: EUR 0.6 million) aims to increase the knowledge of participants in cross-border cases regarding the use of digital communication tools. The ‘European criminal records information system – third country nationals’ project (ECRIS-TCN LT) for Lithuania (budget requested: EUR 0.4 million) promotes digital cooperation and the exchange of biometric data (fingerprints and facial images), and thus contributes to improving data quality in data-exchange processes between countries. It will also create digital tools (functional components) for national law enforcement, judicial and other competent authorities to apply to the Lithuanian central authority in an electronic way, with a request to find the Member States holding information on previous convictions of non-EU nationals, and a request to a specific Member State for obtaining criminal records data; The ‘Freezing orders and confiscation orders: effort for common standards’ (FORCE) project (budget requested: EUR 0.4 million) will develop a set of information and communication technology tools integrated into the project’s website. European practitioners will be able to rely on an updated database on national practices, where they will find the description of the inner freezing and confiscation instruments, relevant contact information on national authorities and practical instructions on how to successfully deliver a freezing/confiscation order. The ‘Small claims analysis net II’ (SCAN II) project (budget requested: EUR 0.8 million) aims at simplifying and digitalising the European Small Claims procedure by developing an information technology platform and a blockchain system to fill the existing gap in the procedure’s enforcement across the EU.
• Under the 2021 call for proposals for action grants to support transnational projects to enhance the rights of persons suspected or accused of crime and the rights of victims of crime (JACC 2021), the ‘Digitalisation of defence rights in criminal proceedings’ (DigiRights) project (budget requested: EUR 0.7 million) is focused on the procedural rights which are susceptible to digitalisation, namely the rights to interpretation, translation, access to the case file, legal assistance and legal aid, and to be present at trial. The project will map and assess the existing practices of digitalisation of these rights with a view to proposing a set of EU guidelines for their digital application. The ultimate goal is to promote a digitalisation of procedural rights that ensures a uniform and adequate standard of protection across the EU.

Year 2022:

• Under the 2022 call for proposals for action grants to support transnational projects on training of justice professionals covering civil law, criminal law or fundamental rights (JTRA 2022), the ‘Court staff and bailiffs’ (CTAB) training project (budget requested: EUR 0.6 million) will also organise training for 500 court staff and 50 bailiffs on digitalisation. Under the same call, the ‘International judicial training’ project (budget requested: EUR 0.5 million) will organise training for 300 judges to boost their competences in a post-pandemic reality. This will include topics such as digitalisation and access to the tools developed by the EU.
• Under the 2022 call for proposals for action grants to promote judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters (JCOO 2022), the ‘Facilitating mutual recognition: analytics and mutual recognition information legal explainable tool to strengthen cooperation in the criminal matter’ (FACILEX) project (requested budget: EUR 0.6 million) will foster mutual knowledge, communication and ultimately trust among the relevant stakeholders in the area of freedom, security and justice by leveraging all of the potential of digital technologies. Under the same call, the ‘Upgrade of national judicial network’ (NJN) project (requested budget: EUR 0.2 million) aims to digitalise mutual cooperation in civil and commercial matters between the members of the National Judicial Network in Czechia.

For e-Justice action grants, the Justice programme monitors the percentage of co-funded project proposals assessed as ‘acceptable’ or better (at the final assessment stage) as part of the digital tracking methodology. The e-Justice projects funded in 2021 and 2022 are still running and therefore it is not possible to provide these data at the moment.

Budget performance – outcomes

• After 2 years of implementation in the 2021-2027 period, the main identified challenges are shown below.
  • Delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic continued to have repercussions in 2022 on a number of ongoing projects, for which amendments had to be prepared.
  • The sharp increase in energy prices in 2022 had a tangible impact on running grants. As the EU contribution is fixed, beneficiaries complain that they cannot implement all of the activities foreseen in the initial grant agreement. Project officers assist project coordinators on a daily basis to try to find case-by-case solutions. The majority of beneficiaries also complain that inflation is not reflected in the unit cost for travel, accommodation and subsistence. These issues will also impact 2023 grants. The decision on unit costs will be revised to take inflation into consideration.
  • Increased number of information technology needs.
  • Absence of National Contact Points in the Member States to support the promotion of the programme and increase its knowledge and visibility.
• Nevertheless, the Justice programme is working very well and was able to address new emerging crises like the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine within the limits of its competences and budget possibilities.
• In 2022, the European Judicial Training Network addressed sexual violence as a war crime in the context of the war in Ukraine in its training activities and, for 2023, the Justice Framework Partners have been encouraged to take into consideration, in their work programmes, the specific situation of victims of violence by armed forces fleeing from Ukraine and to address their specific needs inside the EU. Moreover, in the area of victims’ rights, particular attention is paid to access to information, support and protection to victims of war crimes.
  In 2022, the programme continued to provide support to the annual work programme of 15 framework partners active in the area of facilitating and promoting judicial cooperation in civil and/or criminal matters and in the area of access to justice with a total budget of EUR 0.2 million, and also to fund the work programme of the European Judicial Training Network with a budget of EUR 11.2 million.
  In 2022, the Justice programme also continued to support the Council of Europe in setting up a network of prison monitoring bodies and for the delivery of the SPACE report, an annual report on prison statistics providing clear insights into the detention situations in the Member States, which have a direct impact on judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
• Several procurements contracts for a total amount of EUR 6.5 million have been concluded to support key EU policies in the justice field, such as the protection of vulnerable adults and victims’ rights and to support activities such as the development of training e-capsules on EU law and an awareness-raising campaign on the rule of law.
  Concerning the indicators which measure the performance of the programme, these show that the programme’s objectives are generally on track. Specifically:

Indicators for specific objective 1: judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters

• In 2019, we saw a dramatic growth of the number of exchanges in the European Criminal Records Information System (a decentralised information technology system operated by the central authorities of the EU Member States). Since 2020, the yearly increase in the exchanges has been considerably slowed down. This is due to the United Kingdom leaving the system and to the COVID-19 pandemic, which negatively influenced the movement of people between the EU Member States. In 2022, 4.7 million exchanges of information occurred in the European Criminal Records Information System. This shows a positive increase compared to 2021 (4.1 million exchanges).
• In 2021, 24 civil-society organisations involved in projects funded under the JCOO 2021 call were reached by support and capacity-building activities. In addition, seven civil-society organisations active in the area of facilitating and supporting judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters which receive an annual operating grant were supported. In 2022, seven civil-society organisations involved in projects funded under the JCOO 2022 call were reached by support and capacity building activities. Finally, seven civil-society organisations active in the area of facilitating and supporting judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters which receive an annual operating grant were supported.

Indicators for specific objective 2: judicial training

• The Justice programme is a key player in the area of judicial training, where the actual results demonstrate an improvement in the impact of the programme’s actions in this field. In addition, the Justice programme is one of the tools to implement the strategy on European judicial training for 2021-2024.
• The year 2020 was exceptional, as thousands (instead of the hundreds planned) of lawyers took part in online training on anti-money laundering supported by the Justice programme.
• In 2021, the number of participants decreased because this training ended. Most training activities still took place online and this gave a tremendous boost to the participation of lawyers. In all, 12 734 justice professionals took part in training supported by the Justice programme in 2021 (around 15% of all those who received training on EU law that year).
• On the other hand, under the specific European Judicial Training Network’s annual training programmes, which are also supported via the Justice programme, in 2021 the number of participants increased by 6 829 in comparison with 2020, as some activities could take place face-to-face, in addition to online. The cost-to-serve ratio (i.e. the price per person for 1 training day offered by the network) reached the extremely efficient level of EUR 304 in 2021 compared to previous years (2019: EUR 311, 2018: EUR 306, 2017: EUR 313, 2016: EUR 318), with the exception of 2020 (EUR 239), which was a special year due to COVID-19 and a majority of trainings taking place virtually (see p. 68 of the latest European Judicial Training Network report: https://ejtn.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/EJTN-Annual-Report-2021.pdf).
• The data for 2022 will be available by June 2023, following the preparation of the annual report on European judicial training.
• In 2021, 43 civil-society organisations involved in projects funded under the JTRA call 2021 were reached by support and capacity-building activities, including the European Judicial Training Network, which receives an annual operating grant. In 2022, 30 civil-society organisations involved in projects funded under the JTRA call 2022 were reached by support and capacity-building activities, including the European Judicial Training Network, which receives an annual operating grant.

Indicators for specific objective 3: access to justice

• In the area of victims’ rights, the programme focuses on the implementation of actions under the first-ever EU strategy on victims’ rights (2020-2025).
  By the end of 2022, 27 victim support services with national coverage had been established.
  Under the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework, we monitor only the number of hits on the pages of the e-Justice Portal related to cross-border civil and criminal topics, which is only one part of the e-Justice Portal. This indicator gives an indication of the level of need of information on cross-border civil matters and of the level of relevance of these e-pages favouring greater and easier access to justice by citizens. The European e-Justice Portal is a one-stop shop in justice matters, available in 23 languages. The portal aims at interconnecting existing national justice applications, facilitating judicial cooperation and providing information to a wide variety of stakeholders. It should be noted that in 2021, due to a technical issue, the reported 2021 figure did not account for the traffic received during July-September 2021. The data have been updated for 2021. The 2024 milestone has been already achieved and surpassed in 2022.
• In 2021, 91 civil-society organisations involved in projects funded under the specific objective ‘Access to justice’ (compared to 74 under the JACC 2021 call and 17 under the e-Justice call 2021) were reached by support and capacity-building activities. In addition, six civil-society organisations active in the area of access to justice which receive an annual operating grant were supported. In 2022, two civil-society organisations involved in projects funded under the e-Justice 2022 call were reached by support and capacity-building activities. In addition, six civil-society organisations active in the area of access to justice which receive an annual operating grant were supported. The JACC call did not take place in 2022 and this is why the number of civil-society organisations in 2022 is lower.
• In 2021-2022, around 2 170 28 people are expected to be reached in the framework of activities organised by projects funded under the Justice programme or by DG Justice and Consumers Framework Partners. This data has been extracted from the PART C of the proposals awarded for funding in 2021 and 2022 and might be further updated due to on-going developments in the e-Grants tool.
  • The Justice programme’s performance is also assessed with the help of EUSurvey, which is filled in by the participants of activities carried out by projects funded under the Justice programme. The results from EUSurvey are collected centrally by DG Justice and Consumers. The latest results, on the basis of 578 answers received, show that 62% of respondents gave 5 out of 5 as the overall assessment of the event in which they participated. Respondents indicated ‘increased awareness’ as the greatest benefit that the event brought to them, followed by ‘increased knowledge’, ‘increased cooperation’ and ‘increased skills’. More than 50% also indicated that their perception of the topic has changed to some extent and 49% declared that they are now likely to react differently when confronted with the topic. It is also worth noting that the survey clearly showed that the Justice programme is still not well-known enough among the key stakeholders who participated in the survey. As already mentioned above, having National Contact Points in the Member States to promote the activities of the programme, as is the case for the ‘Citizens, equality, rights and values’ (CERV) programme, would be helpful to give more visibility to the funding opportunities available under the Justice programme.

MFF 2014-2020 – Justice

The justice programme supports a broad range of beneficiaries that play an important role in the development of an EU area of justice. These include, primarily, members of the judiciary and judicial staff, but also public authorities, academic/research institutes and training bodies, along with civil-society and non-profit organisations.

Budget

Cumulative implementation rate at the end of 2022 (million EUR):

Performance assessment

• The outputs from the justice programme in 2014-2020 are closely linked to the Commission’s activities relating to preparing, supporting and ensuring the correct implementation of an important number of EU legal instruments in civil and criminal law, improving their enforcement and remedy capacities in Member States and ensuring adequate cross-border and EU-level cooperation.
• The proper application of EU law is a key element in allowing EU citizens and business to benefit from that law. This is achieved through both preventive action (workshops, expert meetings, stakeholder dialogues, technical guidelines for national authorities and training of justice professionals financed through the programme) and infringement procedures. The activities funded by the programme resulted in the better implementation and functioning of EU justice instruments (e.g. European Investigation Orders, European Arrest Warrants and surrender procedures, European Protection Orders, European Account Preservation Orders, family law). Analytical activities also helped prepare or accompanied new legislation, and responded to policy changes in the areas covered by the programme.
• The justice programme also supported activities relating to the promotion of the rule of law via all its instruments. Action grants on judicial training offered training to the judiciary on the main principles and values stemming from Court of Justice of the European Union and European Court of Human Rights case-law and international documents, and such grants also funded projects to improve the quality of national judicial systems.
• The actions of the programme in relation to specific objective 1 (‘Judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters’) are on track to achieve their goals. The programme has helped to improve the implementation and functioning of existing legislative cooperation instruments and has supported the development of several information and communication technology tools to enhance access to information.
• Overall, the justice programme has performed very well in achieving its goals in relation to specific objective 2 (‘Judicial training’).
• In 2020, most training activities took place online, adapting their delivery to the pandemic and to the travel restrictions. Online activities gave a tremendous boost to participation in the training activities supported by the programme, especially regarding attendance by lawyers. The overall number of participants reached a record level of 22 423 in 2020 (around 7% of all the justice professionals who received training on EU law that year).
• On the other hand, under the specific European Judicial Training Network’s annual training programmes, which are also supported via the justice programme, the number of participants dropped to 5 074 in 2020, as not all activities could be moved online. For example, most face-to-face exchanges could not take place. However, the cost-to-serve ratio (i.e. the price per person for one training day offered by the network) decreased to an exceptional level of EUR 239 compared to previous years (see p. 68 of the last European Judicial Training Network report: https://ejtn.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/EJTN-Annual-Report-2021.pdf), as online activities are cheaper than cross-border face-to-face activities.
• The actions of the programme in relation to specific objective 3 (‘Access to justice’) are on track to achieve their goals of facilitating access to justice for all – including promoting and supporting the rights of victims of crime – while respecting the rights of the defence.
• The European e-Justice Portal, a one-stop shop for justice matters, contributes significantly to improving and facilitating access to justice for citizens, businesses, national authorities, legal practitioners and the judiciary. Over the years, it has grown to cover more than 150 topics in a wide variety of areas.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to have an impact on the implementation of the programme in relation to funds awarded via action grants or operating grants. However, a full assessment is not yet possible, since reporting for this period will only be done later at project closure or final report time.
• Many of the programme’s beneficiaries converted activities such as training to online events as much as possible. Obviously, much less funding is needed for such events. Moreover, some activities, while not completely cancelled, were reduced in scope (e.g. the parts that were only meaningful in case of physical interaction have been delayed, or in some cases cancelled). Both factors will result in funds being recovered in upcoming years.

Contribution to the sustainable development goals