Europe needs minimum standards on detention

Public Service Europe - Claude Moraes MEP

Minimum European standards for detention conditions are essential if legal instruments such as the European Arrest Warrant are to work efficiently, argues Claude Moraes

In order to ensure that our legal European Union instruments such as the European Arrest Warrant work efficiently, we must ensure that we protect and promote mutual trust and recognition of our individual judicial systems. In order to tackle cross-border crime, we must work together to address any issues that hamper this.

The management of prisons is ultimately the responsibility of individual member states but it becomes a concern for the EU institutions when it negatively impacts on legal measures and when it puts fundamental rights at stake. As stated in the European Parliament declaration of February 2011, detention conditions across the EU vary widely and this is attested by organisations such as Fair Trials.