The UK and the EU are strongly committed to continuing security cooperation in criminal justice matters after the UK withdraws from the EU, but diverge as to its nature and scope. The UK would wish to strike a new security deal with the EU, allowing it to sustain cooperation on the basis of existing EU measures. But this ambition does not square with the EU position that the UK will be a ‘third country outside Schengen’ after Brexit, and that, as such, it will not be able to maintain the status quo. To retain any fast-track system of extradition, as a sound alternative to the EAW, the UK will have to subscribe to key principles dictating how the latter operates, including fundamental European human rights; UK alignment with EU procedural rights directives should attract particular attention in that respect, argues BiE director, Prof Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, in a blog post that was published by 'Fair Trials'.

Read the blog in full here.