Some 700,000 of the EU’s estimated 1.4 million lawyers, prosecutors and judges will have received a week’s formal training in EU law by 2020, the European Commission (EC) announced last week.

The EC said in a press statement that the aim is to equip legal practitioners to apply EU law at national level. The educational programme will help build mutual trust between Europe’s different legal systems and improve the implementation of European legislation. It will benefit people and businesses in Europe, who will be ‘able to rely on swift decisions and proper respect for the rules’.

EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding said: ‘I have set a clear and ambitious target to help cement our efforts to create an EU-wide area of justice, improving the way the internal market operates. Judicial training is central to a modern and well-functioning judiciary and is a much-needed investment to develop justice for growth.’

See Jonathan Goldsmith’s Euro blog.