The Interactive Judicial Training Report

Introduction

This interactive European Judicial Training report contains judicial training data in respect of EU law since 2011 and outlines the progress towards the objectives set by the European Judicial Training Strategy for 2021-2024.

Well-trained professionals can help ensure a smooth digitalisation of national justice systems to efficiently deliver justice, improve its quality and enable full access to justice systems. It is therefore critical to increase training participation across all professions and in each Member State over the coming years.

Thank you to all those involved in judicial training across the EU. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

Highlights

On average, around 200,000 justice professionals, around 15 % of all EU justice professionals received training on EU law or on the law of another Member State annually, indicating a stable increase since the pandemic.
Since 2011, there have been more than 2 million instances of justice professionals receiving training on EU law with a steady annual increase. While some justice professionals may have attended in multiple years, this figure highlights the scale and reach of the training efforts.
Annually, training for more than 60,000 participants – around 30% of all the justice professionals who received training on EU law, representing around 5 % of all EU justice professionals, is (co)‑funded by the EU.
Considerable differences in the level of participation in training remain across Member States and the various justice professions.
Despite a stable increase since 2019, further efforts are needed to reach the quantitative targets set for annual continuing training by the European judicial training strategy for 2021-2024.
Better and more targeted training activities must ultimately remain the goal to answer the needs of justice professionals.
This should also include training on digitalisation, which increasingly gains in importance.

Progress per Profession

Between 2011 and 2023, there have been more than two million instances of justice professionals, taking part in EU law training or in the law of another Member State. The absolute numbers of participants and the percentage they represent in relation to the total number of practitioners vary greatly between the professions and Member States, notably because of different training needs, training offers, but also because of training gaps and data collection issues. There is still room for improvement with regards to the completeness and accuracy of the provided data.

Increases or decreases of training on EU law may not always correspond to a particular reason. In some cases, the fluctuations can be explained by the imperfect data collection. In other cases, important improvements in the training offer have occurred in the concerned Member State for a certain profession. Variations for a given Member State or profession may reflect participation or, in certain cases, just data gaps (e.g. where the scope of available data narrows from one year to the next). Available data from a Member State might relate to certain training providers only, regions or types of practitioners.

2020 marks a record year, when online courses became increasingly available and popular. An online training fatigue post the pandemic years could explain downward trends. Yet, the numbers still show a significant updward trend since pre-pandemic years. For professions such as prosecutors, bailiffs, notaries and court prosecutors’ office staff, we can see a return to pre-pandemic levels of professionals trained or even increases, whereas judges still have not yet been back to the pre-pandemic years, despite the substantial increase in 2022.

EU Funding

The judicial training provider on EU law that received the biggest single financial support by the European Commission in most years was the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN).

Operating grants to support training activities were also awarded to the Academy of European Law (ERA) and the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA).

The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA), European Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL) also used EU funds to train justice practitioners.

In addition, the Commission awarded action grants under several of its financial programmes – the Justice programme in the areas of civil and criminal justice, fundamental rights, and competition law and the Citizenship, equality, rights, and values programme (CERV).

Next Steps

Since 2011, the European Commission has been actively monitoring judicial training across Europe, evaluating the progress made under two successive European judicial training strategies.

The new European Judicial Training Strategy will aim to strengthen the role of judicial training as a supportive environment for the digitalisation of judicial systems in the EU.

Meanwhile, this interactive report evaluates milestones and results of judicial training of the past strategy, revealing the level of accomplishment of the strategic objectives. Persistent gaps in the data collection highlight the need for increased efforts from all stakeholders involved.

The demand for digitalisation-related training will grow substantially to address emerging challenges and turn them into opportunities. As such, the focus in the coming years will be on enhancing digital skills and ensuring the effective use of new technologies. The Commission has successfully organised conferences to address these challenges, fostering collaboration among stakeholders to upskill justice professionals and identify evolving training needs and priorities.

Judicial training remains a shared responsibility of the Member States, justice professionals and their training providers as well as the EU. To achieve meaningful progress, equipping justice professionals with the knowledge, skills and attitudes, necessary to adapt to rapidly changing societies and economies, will require ambitious actions and close cooperation among all stakeholders.

One thing is clear: judicial training continues to be a top priority on our agenda.