The European arrest warrant ("EAW") is a simplified cross-border judicial surrender procedure – for the purpose of prosecuting or executing a custodial sentence or detention order. A warrant issued by one EU country's judicial authority is valid in the entire territory of the EU. The European arrest warrant has been operational since 1 January 2004. It has replaced the lengthy extradition procedures that used to exist between EU countries.
This is a request by a judicial authority in one EU country to arrest a person in another and surrender them for prosecution, or to execute a custodial sentence or detention order issued in the first country. The mechanism is based on the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions. It is operational in all EU countries
It operates via direct contacts between judicial authorities.
In applying the EAW, authorities have to respect the procedural rights of suspects or accused persons – such as the right to information, to have a lawyer, and an interpreter, and to legal aid as stipulated by law in the country where they are arrested.
The European Commission published a Handbook on How to Issue and Execute a European arrest warrant (2002 Kb)
, to facilitate and simplify the daily work of concerned judicial authorities. The Handbook provides detailed guidance on the procedural steps for issuing and executing an EAW. The Handbook also provides for a complete explanation of the major case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union interpreting particular provisions of the Framework Decision on EAW.
The handbook in all languages can be found here: BG (2700 Kb)
, CS
(1854 Kb)
, DA
(1766 Kb)
, DE
(1659 Kb)
, ET
(1783 Kb)
, EL
(2439 Kb)
, ES
(1649 Kb)
, FR
(1892 Kb)
, HR
(1789 Kb)
, IT
(2141 Kb)
, LV
(2158 Kb)
, LT
(1865 Kb)
, HU
(1908 Kb)
, MT
(2560 Kb)
, NL
(2047 Kb)
, PL
(2200 Kb)
, PT
(1968 Kb)
, RO
(1926 Kb)
, SL
(1797 Kb)
, SK
(1977 Kb)
, FI
(2172 Kb)
, SV
(1591 Kb)
.
In 2017, on average the wanted persons were surrendered:
Replies to questionnaire on EAW: 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017
Data is not available for all countries; however, issued EAWs data is complete for 2015, 2016 and 2017.
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
2017 |
|
Issued |
6.894 |
6.889 |
10.883 |
14.910 |
15.827 |
13.891 |
9.784 |
10.665 |
13.142 |
14.948 |
16.144 |
16.636 |
17.491 |
Executed EAWs |
836 |
1.223 |
2.221 |
3.078 |
4.431 |
4.293 |
3.153 |
3.652 |
3.467 |
5.535 |
5.304 |
5.812 |
6.317 |
The InAbsentiEAW research project is a comparative legal study into European Arrest Warrants (EAW) relating to persons who were not present in the proceedings leading to their conviction (in absentia proceedings). Practice shows that it often comes to problems in issuing and executing such EAWs. The goal of the research project was to analyse the causes for these problems and to formulate common standards for issuing such EAWs in order to ensure their smooth and fair execution. The research was conducted by means of case studies from Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, and Romania.
This page is maintained by the European Commission. The information on this page does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission. The Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to any information or data contained or referred to in this document. Please refer to the legal notice with regard to copyright rules for European pages.