In the course of their informal summit in Santiago di Compostela the ministers of Justice and the Interior of Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom announced that their countries intend to apply the procedure for the European arrest warrant already in the course of the first half of 2003, i.e. at least six months ahead of the date of 1st January 2004 fixed by the summit at Laeken last December. On behalf of the Spanish government and his five colleagues, the Spanish minister of Justice Angel Acebes declared that “so significant a decision, made possible by our codes of law, demonstrates our willingness to seriously apply an instrument of extreme importance”. The text of the European arrest warrant, in favour of which the European Parliament voted on 6 February (cf. SirEurope no. 6/2002), will be finally adopted without any further discussion or amendment by the Justice and Internal Affairs Council before the end of April, in spite of the fact that some national parliaments have not yet pronounced on the matter. G.A.G.
