EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT AS AN INSTRUMENT OF FIGHT AGAINST ORGANIZED CRIME IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract

The paper emphasizes the importance of a very important legal instrument, the European arrest warrant (EAW), which came into force in the European Union (EU) in 2004. The main objective of this paper is to perceive from the legal and historical aspects the importance and role of the legal acts that regulate the issue of extradition and the effects of legislative activity by which the latter is implemented. Forasmuch as the manner of functioning of extradition of accused and convicted persons the paper explicitly elaborates the main reasons and justification for the introduction of the European arrest warrant (EAW), the instrument that has greatly simplified the former extremely complicated system of extradition. Also, it has significantly shortened the period of time necessary for the extradition of a particular person, but also has established a higher level of cooperation between the Member States of the European Union (EU). The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) has justifiably acquired the status of an effective legal instrument. In order to offer better explanations the paper presents concrete case studies and relevant statistics, including the offenses which require the mandatory reasons for issuing, the exact number of issued warrants in the past and the containing elements.