Context
The European Commission’s Communication “Ensuring justice in the EU – a European judicial training strategy for 2021-2024” provides a framework for the proper implementation of the competences that the Lisbon Treaty granted to the EU in relation to judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters, especially through training legal professionals so as to improve and make consistent the application of EU law. In addition, the EU training strategy is an indispensable tool to ensure “the effective application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and making the Charter rights a reality in people’s everyday lives”.
Due to their unique position as regulators of the legal profession (i.e. lawyers) in the various EU Member States, Bars and Law Societies are in the best possible position to help the EU fulfil its objectives in terms of training. As a result of regulating and providing other services to their membership, Bars know where the need for training lies (i.e. which areas of EU law need to be addressed), and how they can be best addressed (i.e. which activities are best suited for successful training, so as to have a direct impact on the rights of citizens and businesses, while also contributing to the rule of law in their Member State). In fact, EU lawyers’ training needs are not static but evolve in parallel with the developments of European society.
The TRAVAR project is the result of a tri-partite collaboration between the European Lawyers Foundation (ELF), the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) and Bars of some EU Member States, whose motivation is the need to train lawyers in various areas of EU law where there is a need for such training. This project targets training in two relevant areas of EU law i.e. the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (the EU Charter) and EU criminal law. This will continue the serious commitment by lawyers’ organisations to training lawyers in EU law and contribute to the reinforcement of the rule of law in the EU, through the implementation of training activities for legal professionals.
Needs that the project aims to address
TRAVAR is the result of the assessment undertaken by ELF, the CCBE and some EU Bars as organisations which know first-hand, due to their status and work, about lawyers’ needs in training. These needs go from training in “traditional” areas such as EU criminal law to more specific and timely needs such as training about the Unified Patent Court, to mention just two examples. Training needs also refer to the format in which training is delivered, as some lawyers may be better suited to online training whereas others may prefer in-person training due to their field of practice (e.g. criminal lawyers with a cross-border practice, since in-person training positively favours much-needed networking). For all these reasons, TRAVAR has been built considering the training needs of lawyers in different areas of law and in the format in which the training needs to be delivered.
Objectives
To train 2.000 lawyers from 26 EU Member States on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights through the holding of 8 webinars on different rights enshrined in the Charter, in the following fields:
- The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
- Artificial Intelligence
- Intellectual Property (general aspects)
- Intellectual Property (specialised aspects)
- Digitalisation
- Unified Patent Court
- Climate change
- Preliminary reference before the Court of Justice of the European Union
To train on EU Criminal Law and facilitate networking for 205 lawyers from 9 EU Member States through the holding of 7 in-person events in 7 countries (Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, France, Romania and Poland), with a duration of 1.5 days, covering the following topics: right of access to a lawyer, presumption of innocence, legal aid and best practices on the national application of the three procedural rights Directives and the European Arrest Warrant
To publish an updated version of the Infosheets on the national implementation of the three procedural rights directives (access to a lawyer, presumption of innonce and legal aid), covering 9 different EU jurisdictions (Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, France, Romania, Poland, Austria and Bulgaria)
To undertake communication activities: (a) to reach the largest possible group of potential participants in the various project training activities, and (b) to keep EU Bars and lawyers informed about the project’s state of play
To contribute to the EU’s objective of continuing training on EU law reaching 15% of lawyers in the EU by 2024
Target group
All the organisations participating in this project (ELF, CCBE and EU Bars) are professional legal organisations whose members are national Bars (ELF and CCBE) or lawyers (EU Bars). Therefore, the main target of the project activities are lawyers. All EU Bars are also targeted, as it is very important for them to be regularly informed about the state of play of the project.
We have decided to focus primarily on lawyers because of the importance of their training needs in the areas of EU law identified. EU Bars will be mainly targeted through communication activities, which will also target lawyers and other legal professionals and stakeholders.
Co-funded by the European Union
TRAVAR Athens seminar presentations
TRAVAR Bucharest seminar presentations
TRAVAR Nicosia seminar presentations
TRAVAR Madrid seminar presentations
TRAVAR Warsaw seminar presentations
Intellectual Property enforcement webinar presentations
Unified Patent Court webinar presentations
Artificial Intelligence webinar presentations
Court of Justice of the European Union webinar presentations
Digitalisation webinar presentations
EU Charter webinar presentations