Justice Programme - Performance

Programme in a nutshell

Concrete examples of achievements (*)

(*)   Key achievements in the table state which period they relate to. Some come from the implementation of the predecessor programmes under the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework. This is expected and is due to the multiannual life cycle of EU programmes and the projects they finance, where results often follow only after completion of the programmes.

Budget for 2021-2027

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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 programming

Budget programming (million EUR):

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  Financial programming:
  - EUR 2.2 million (- 1%)
  compared to the legal basis*

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

Budget implementation

Cumulative implementation rate at the end of 2023 (million EUR):

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Voted budget implementation (million EUR)^(*):

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Contribution to horizontal priorities

Green budgeting

Contribution to green budgeting priorities (million EUR):

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• 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 always invited to limit the number of people from each co-beneficiary attending 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 2023, no projects funded under the calls for proposals on judicial cooperation and judicial training focused specifically on climate and the environment.
• In 2023, several procurement contracts contributed to the ‘do no harm’ principle on the basis of their implementation methods (such as online meetings, information technology contracts, web application contracts); no procurement contracts were identified as contributing to climate/environmental goals based on the content.

Gender

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

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Key achievements:

The 2023 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 to data collection and information dissemination. The justice programme regulation itself supports the gender mainstreaming of calls for proposals via its recitals, which outline that gender equality should be promoted in all funded activities;.

The justice programme takes part in the pilot methodology developed by the Commission to measure the contribution of the EU budget to gender equality. It is important to clarify that the data provided below in relation to grants, which refer to the scores for this methodology (0, 0*, 1 and 2), are based on data collected at the evaluation stage. Moreover, by applying this methodology, 82% of funding from the justice programme in 2023 received a score of 0 or 0*. This reflects the technical thematic focus and nature of the programme, but does not account for the very good achievements of the programme in ensuring that participation in all project activities is gender balanced (as mentioned above), which is essential to the achievement of gender equality. As EU judicial training is one of the three specific objectives of the programme, ensuring gender-balanced participation in the activities offered is crucial. Indeed, equal participation in all spheres of life is an important dimension of gender equality: in the case of education and training, it has also an impact on other key dimensions of gender equality, such as economic independence, access to (and balanced) participation in decision-making, etc. Data on participation in judicial training offered by the European Judicial Training Network in 2023 show that 63% of participants were women and 33% were men, thus confirming that the programme contributes significantly to gender equality in the judiciary across the EU. In addition, mainstreaming efforts relating to grants resulted in more attention being paid by applicants to gender equality, going well beyond only ensuring gender-balanced participation in project activities. In fact, it is worth noting that a good 60% of funds provided under the judicial cooperation call and the justice operating grants in 2023 received a score of 1. Also, for the very first time, a grant was signed in 2023 with a gender score of 2.

While the Commission has also started to introduce a gender perspective in procurement activities, the data are not at the same level of granularity as the data collected for grants. Therefore, the estimate of the procurement activities’ gender score is based on their programming. Similarly, data on projects funded via indirect management are also estimated based on their thematic focus.

Part of the programmed budget has been merged for the years 2023-2024. As a consequence, not all of the budget that was financially programmed in 2023 has yet been implemented, and therefore its gender score could not be evaluated. To account for the amount of the budget for which the gender score is still unknown, and taking into consideration the specific objectives of the justice programme, a score of 0* has been used as a default estimate. For the specific objective covering victim’s rights, the estimate has been set at 1, as there is a stronger gender focus. Once the budget in question has been implemented, the gender scores will be revisited.

• Gender score 2

  The specific objectives of the justice programme are rather technical in nature, and focus on legal instruments and procedures. However, the efforts made to ensure gender mainstreaming in the call documents have contributed to more awareness of the topic. As a result, for the first time, a funded project received a score of 2, which denotes that gender equality is the principal objective. The project in question is funded under the judicial cooperation strand and focuses on the situation of LGBTQ detainees. No procurement or indirect management actions have received a score of 2.

• Gender score 1

  About 24% of the funding from grants, or EUR 5.4 million, received a score of 1. Grants funded under the specific objective of judicial cooperation contributed greatly to this score, with EUR 2.2 million from action grants. The operating grants promoting judicial cooperation and access to justice also promoted gender equality to the amount of EUR 2.4 million. This can be explained by the thematic focus, which includes topics such as detention conditions, the rehabilitation of detainees and mutual recognition instruments in family law. No procurement or indirect management actions have received a score of 1.

• Gender score 0*

  The majority of funds implemented via grants, around 71% or EUR 16.2 million, received a score of 0*. Overall, the judicial training specific objective accounts for nearly two thirds of total funds and significantly impacts this score. A particularly large contribution to this score comes from the operating grant provided to the European Judicial Training Network (EUR 11.2 million), which provides judges, advocates general, magistrates, bailiffs and other judicial practitioners with training on EU law. While such training sessions provide an opportunity to address gender-related issues in judicial proceedings and the interpretation of EU law, this is not their main focus. Almost 10% of funding from procurement received this score. The contributions stem from activities such as awareness-raising campaigns on victims’ rights that have the potential to promote gender equality. All indirect management actions have received a score of 0* as they have the potential to promote gender equality, for example by addressing detention conditions, but do not yet systematically integrate a gender perspective.

• Gender score 0

  3% of funds from grants, or EUR 0.7 million, were given a score of 0. This indicates a positive change from the previous year, in which some 20% of projects funded via grants received a score of 0. In this context, it should be considered that the budget earmarked for technical projects such as the ECRIS-TCN priority under the judicial cooperation call was much less prevalent, and only two IT projects were funded. In addition, the specific call that focuses on e-justice and the digitisation of justice will only provide funding in 2024. This explains the comparative low share of this score in 2023. Over 90% of funding provided via procurement received a score of 0. This high amount can be explained by the technical and procedural nature of the programme, which mostly funds information technology developers, information technology systems maintenance, the printing of handbooks on legal procedures and meetings of expert groups via procurement.

Digital

Contribution to digital transition (million EUR):

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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 2019-2023 Council e-justice strategy and action plan 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 European e-Justice Portal;
• the maintenance of the European e-Justice Portal;
• the development of digital skills for legal professionals and other target groups and the digitalisation of training, in terms of both 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 2023, several procurement contracts linked to digitalisation were signed amounting to around EUR 6 million, which was used to finance, among other items, information and communication technology contracts, maintenance of the European e-Justice Portal and other tools, and a 3-day conference on digitalisation of justice.

In addition, the justice programme is constantly monitoring whether and how inflation will impact information technology expenditure under procurement. The budget will be reshuffled if necessary to respond to emerging needs.

Grant contribution to digital

Concerning projects awarded in 2023 that support the development of digital skills for legal professionals or other target groups (always linked to the digitalisation of justice), the following results were achieved.

• Under the 2023 call for proposals for action grants to support transnational projects on the training of justice professionals covering civil law, criminal law or fundamental rights (JUST-2023-JTRA), five projects that are relevant for the digitalisation of justice were funded. For instance, the digitalisation AI project will organise training seminars on various challenges linked to digitalisation and artificial intelligence for judges, prosecutors and lawyers working in the field of EU criminal law. The EU-Baltic project will train judges and prosecutors in the Baltic countries on digital skills, tools and digital legal databases such as Curia, HUDOC and EUR-Lex.
• Under the 2023 call for proposals for action grants to promote judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters (JUST-2023-JCOO), seven projects that are relevant for the digitalisation of justice were funded. For instance, the Source project aims to promote judicial cooperation by supporting, particularly, the implementation and practical application of Directive 2014/41/EU in relation to the employment of new technologies in the field of interception and surveillance in transnational investigations. The Ephesus project will promote mutual learning and awareness-raising among judges and prosecutors on the identification of fundamental and procedural rights breaches involving the use of the European Arrest Warrant in online judicial proceedings.
• 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 have recently reached their end or are still running, and the evaluation of the call JUST-2023-JACC-EJUSTICE is still ongoing; it is therefore not yet possible to provide these data.

Budget performance – outcomes

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After 3 years of implementation of the current multiannual financial framework, running from 2021 to 2027, the main challenges identified in 2023 were the following.

• The COVID-19 crisis continued to have an impact in 2023, even if it was more minor than in previous years. In 2023, 10% of the total signed amendments were still motivated by the implications of the pandemic.
• The sharp increase in inflation continued to have a tangible impact on running grants in 2023. As the EU contribution is fixed, beneficiaries complained that they could not implement all of the activities provided for in their initial grant agreement because inflation was not reflected in the unit costs for travel, accommodation and subsistence. For this reason, the decision on unit costs was revised in June 2023 to try to compensate for the extreme inflation in the price of air travel since 2021. The rates for return air and rail travel above 400 km have increased by 25%. For all other unit costs, a separate review is currently under way that may result in a further amendment of the rates in the near future.
• In 2023, all justice calls (except those of operating grants) switched to lump sums. This change was introduced in order to alleviate the administrative burdens for beneficiaries and to simplify their reporting obligations, while keeping the focus on performance. Since this represented a novelty for the justice programme, a large amount of effort has been put into providing dedicated training for beneficiaries on how to apply and prepare a proposal’s budget in line with the new lump-sum system.
• The increased information technology needs (specifically for procurement) and the policy focus on the digitalisation of justice systems are putting pressure on the limited budget of the programme.
• There was an absence of national contact points in the Member States to support the promotion of the programme, make it more visible and increase knowledge about it.

Despite these challenges, the justice programme is performing well and was able to address both ongoing crises (such as the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine) and other emerging priorities (such as digitalisation) within the limits of its competences and budget.

In 2023, the programme continued to provide support to 15 framework partners active in the areas of judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters and access to justice, and also to support the European Judicial Training Network.

In 2023, the European Judicial Training Network provided a targeted training offer for the Ukrainian judiciary. At the same time, the justice framework partners have been encouraged to take into consideration, in their 2023 work programmes, the specific situation of victims of violence by armed forces fleeing from Ukraine and to address their specific needs inside the EU by supporting, for instance, capacity-building activities documenting violence as a war crime in Ukraine. Moreover, in the call for proposals on access to justice, particular attention was paid to access to information and to the support and protection of victims of war crimes. In addition, additional focus and efforts were required by justice framework partners on improving access to justice through the use of digital tools for all types of civil and criminal proceedings, facilitating the conduct of judicial proceedings through the use of digital tools and increasing awareness and knowledge of the use of the available digital tools. The network was encouraged to include the digitalisation of judicial proceedings (including cross-border proceedings) among its training topics, along with the protection of individuals’ rights in the digital space).

A total of 55 civil-society organisations involved in activities funded through the justice programme in 2023 were reached by support and capacity-building activities.

In 2023, the justice programme also continued to support the Council of Europe in setting up a network of prison-monitoring bodies and in 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. During the year, the programme also supported a new Council of Europe project on child-friendly justice. The objective of this initiative is to improve the general understanding and awareness of the current, factual state of child-friendly justice in the EU and to enhance the effective implementation of EU legal and policy frameworks in this field.

In 2023, around 110 procurement contracts, for a total amount of EUR 13.7 million, were concluded to support key EU policies in the justice field and to support activities such as an awareness-raising campaign on victims’ rights, the EU justice scoreboard and various studies.

The justice programme and its actions can contribute to various horizontal priorities at the same time (such as digital and gender). This is supposed to happen more regularly from 2023 onwards, due to the increased focus on digitalisation in all priorities of the calls for proposals and the fact that achieving and improving gender equality in the justice field is a clear objective underlined in the programme’s legal basis. The call for proposals on access to justice, currently still under evaluation, is the most suitable for providing good examples of synergies between different horizontal priorities. 

Concerning the indicators that measure the performance of the programme, these show that the programme’s objectives are generally on track. Specific examples can be seen below.

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

In 2023, the Member States exchanged 4.9 million messages through the European criminal records information system (a decentralised information technology system operated by the central authorities of the EU Member States). This is a positive increase compared to 2022 (4.7 million messages exchanged) and the continuation of steady growth in this area since the post-COVID-19 period.

In 2023, 23 civil-society organisations involved in projects funded under the JCOO 2023 call were reached by support and capacity-building activities. In addition, seven such organisations, active in the area of facilitating and supporting judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters, that 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 2021-2024 strategy on European judicial training.

The year 2022 was significant as, after the years of the pandemic, the majority (62%) of training activities organised were again held face to face.

In 2022, 24 208 justice professionals took part in training supported by the justice programme (around 35.3% of all those who received EU (co-)funded training on EU law that year).

Under the specific European Judicial Training Network annual training programmes, which are also supported via the justice programme, the number of participants increased to 8 101 in 2022 (from 6 829 in 2021).

The cost-to-serve ratio (i.e. the price per person for 1 training day offered by the network) reached EUR 305 in 2022. This was a small increase compared to 2021 (EUR 304). In 2020, the cost-to-serve ration was particularly low (EUR 239) due to the pandemic and the fact that most training had to take place virtually.

The data for 2023 will be available by November 2024, following the preparation of the annual report on European judicial training. In 2023, 27 civil-society organisations involved in projects funded under the 2023 JTRA call 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).

Twenty-seven victim support services with national coverage have been established so far.

Under the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework, we monitor only the number of hits on the pages of the European e-Justice Portal relating to cross-border civil and criminal topics, which is only one part of the portal. This gives an indication of the need for information on cross-border civil and criminal matters and of the level of relevance of these web 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 to interconnect existing national justice applications, facilitate judicial cooperation and provide 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 of that year. The data have been updated. The 2024 milestone was achieved and surpassed as early as 2022.

In 2023, five civil-society organisations active in the field of access to justice were supported via an annual operating grant. The call for proposals on access to justice is still under evaluation, and the number of these organisations will therefore increase.

In 2023, around 311 786 people are expected to be reached within the framework of activities organised by projects funded under the justice programme or by justice framework partners. Considering that the JUST-2023-JACC-EJUSTICE call for proposals is still under evaluation, the expected number of people to be reached is expected to be bigger. These data have been extracted from Part C of the proposals awarded for funding in 2023 and are based on estimated values, to be verified at the reporting stage. Data about 2021 and 2022 were also collected in 2023. The total expected number of people to be reached in the first 3 years of implementation of the justice programme under the current multiannual financial framework is around 2 722 131.

As mentioned above, the justice programme’s performance is also assessed through the EU Survey on Justice, Rights and Values, which is completed by participants in activities carried out by projects funded under the justice programme. The results from the survey are centrally collected by DG Justice and Consumers. The latest results, based on 2 421 answers received in 2023, show that 74% of respondents assessed the event in which they participated as good or very good. Respondents also indicated ‘increased awareness’ as the greatest benefit that the event brought to them, followed by ‘increased knowledge’, ‘increased cooperation’ and ‘increased skills’. More than 65% of respondents indicated that their perception of the topic addressed at the various events has changed, and 90% declared that they are now likely to react differently when confronted with the topic. It is also worth noting that in 2023 the survey showed that the justice programme and its funding opportunities are much better known among key stakeholders – in fact, 76.5% of respondents have heard about available EU funding to further promote a European area of justice. As already mentioned above, having national contact points in the Member States to promote the activities of the programme could be helpful to give even 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 implementation

Cumulative implementation rate at the end of 2023 (million EUR):

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Performance assessment

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• The outputs from the justice programme in 2014-2020 were 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
• The justice programme provided around EUR 330 million between 2014 and 2020 in support of the further development of a European area of justice based on mutual recognition and mutual trust. The main initiatives funded included analytical activities, mutual learning, awareness raising and dissemination activities, training activities and other actions to support the main actors and stakeholders. The programme succeeded in contributing to upholding EU values, such as the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and the effectiveness of the justice system.
• The first part of the ex post evaluation carried out in 2022 looked into the performance and results of the 2014-2020 justice programme. The evaluation showed that, despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (which required many beneficiaries to re-design the implementation of their project or to cancel it), the programme has proved its high EU added value and its crucial role in providing financial resources to fund activities in key areas that are not necessarily high on the agenda of the Member States. The evaluation also showed that the relatively high costs of drafting a proposal are outweighed by the even higher benefits of participating in the programme.
• Several internal and external factors affected the programme’s effectiveness. The main external factors were the COVID-19 pandemic, the macroeconomic conditions, the refugee crisis and the transposition of EU law by Member States. As for internal factors, the evaluation highlighted that the most salient areas for improvement are the application procedure, the need to provide more guidance and assistance to applicants, the timing of the application cycle which is not always in line with stakeholders’ needs and a better monitoring and results-based reporting systems.
• The evaluation also showed that the justice programme created successful transnational partnerships as result of the programme's transnational nature. According to beneficiaries, the partnerships developed through operating grants and action grants funded under the justice programme have increased the capabilities of their respective organisations.
• Concerning other areas for improvement, the evaluation highlighted, in particular, the programme’s geographical distribution of resources and the need to include more stakeholders relevant to the programme such as civil society organisations in the area of victims’ rights.
• The second part of the ex-post evaluation is planned in 2024 and expected to be concluded in 2025. It will particulary focus on long-term effects and sustainability of the programme.

Contribution to the sustainable development goals