Conference on 19 and 20 May in Brussels

Directorate-General Justice and Consumers is organising a conference on 19 and 20 May in Brussels in cooperation with the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN).

This event is primarily targeted at providers of training for judges, prosecutors, prison and probation staff.

Firstly, it will take stock of recent experience of cross-border training cooperation in this area. Secondly, it will allow for an exchange on training needs between training providers and EU level networks of justice practitioners and institutions touched by the prevention, prosecution of terrorism and violent extremism as well as the treatment of offenders. Thirdly, it will generate ideas for the design of training activities covering these needs and illustrate what EU support is available.

Please find below the details of the conference and a link to the registration webpage. Registration for the event is only open to national representatives responsible for the organisation of training for judges, prosecutors, prison or probation staff as well as invited officials of EU-level organisations representing justice practitioners or institutions.

• Privacy statement(34 kB)
• Programme with presentations(466 kB)

More information on the conference

Judges, prosecutors, prison and probation staff are the main professionals of the justice area concerned with the judicial response to terrorism and radicalisation to violent extremism. They have partially overlapping training needs, such as the correct understanding and detection of radicalisation and acting with intercultural competence.

This is the first European Commission conference aimed at an exchange of experiences among providers of training for prison and probation staff. This event is timely in that it takes into consideration the Council of Europe´s Guidelines for prison and probation services regarding radicalisation and violent extremism from March 2016 when discussing consequences for training.

At the same time, this event is a follow-up to the pilot series of training activities for judges and prosecutors on countering terrorism and radicalisation, implemented by the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) – co-organiser of this event - in 2015/16. The current event will go beyond EJTN´s pilot project by also tackling the training needs of non-criminal judges, necessitated by their power to impose preventive measures, for instance, in the area of administrative law (such as travel restrictions) or family law (such as dealing with radicalised minors).

This conference also offers training providers the possibility to discuss the training needs of their target audience with EU level networks representing legal professionals, courts, prosecution offices, prison and probation services, all of which have to respond to terrorism and radicalisation in their daily work.

Structure of the conference

The prelude is a get-together dinner on the evening before the conference. Participants will find "thematic tables" on a range of topics related to the overall conference theme which will facilitate their meeting participants from other Member States with similar interests, and across the different justice professions.

In plenary sessions, the scene will be set by outlining the contribution of judicial training to the justice sector’s response to terrorism and violent extremism, the up-coming EU legislation that may create additional training needs, recent experiences with training activities in this area, up-coming cross-border related training projects, and the available EU financial support for further training projects.

A large part of the conference will take place in working groups, dealing with the training of criminal law judges/prosecutors, of non-criminal law judges, and of prison and probation staff. Each working group will start with a presentation of existing cross-border cooperation initiatives for the training of the targeted practitioners, followed by a discussion with justice practitioners (representing EU level networks or institutions) on the training needs of the respective group in the field of countering terrorism and violent extremism. In small groups of 5-7 persons, participants will discuss the design of training activities in areas such as the sentencing of convicted terrorists and violent extremists, or the prevention of the spread of violent extremism. The aim of these small discussion-groups is for participants to exchange information about existing training activities and to collect ideas about goals, topics and methodology for additional training initiatives. The results of the different discussion-groups will be shared with the other participants so that each training provider can take home "hands-on" ideas to develop its curriculum further.

Interpretation will be provided to and from English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish. However, the small discussion groups of 5-7 persons will take place in English.

Public transport:
Metro, bus and train station (Bruxelles) "Schuman” - metro lines 1 and 5, airport bus lines 12 and 21.

Information on the EU judicial training policy

Judicial training section of the European e-Justice Portal of the European Commission