La orden de detención europea como instrumento procesal en la lucha contra el terrorismo

Abstract

The European Arrest Aarrant (henceforth EAW) has undoubtedly emerged as the most effective procedural instrument to date in the fight against terrorism, among those envisaged in the framework of judicial cooperation in criminal matters at the headquarters of the European Union; all of this without prejudice to the future of the European investigation order, the latter being a much more recent instrument. Indeed, the EAW or OEDE according to the Spanish acronym (orden europea de detención y entrega), was the first instrument created by the European institutions to put into practice the principle of mutual recognition established at the Tampere European Council and today expressly regulated in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union since the signature of the Treaty of Lisbon. At the time it was conceived as a "test" to replace traditional extradition for the geographical area of the European Union, but the statistics on its application provided by the Member States and the abundant case law already issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) since Luxembourg have shown that this pilot test has far exceeded initial expectations. For this reason, a brief examination of its operation will be carried out here taking into account new practices too, now also marked by the health crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.