The European Judicial Training Network And Its Role In The Strategy For The Europeanization Of National Judges

This article addresses the building of a framework of European Judicial Training (EJT), notably the establishment, organization and functioning of the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN). After describing the EJTN and retracing its distinctive features – co-operation, decentralization, complementarity, targeting –, the article underlines its peculiar function within EJT, which reflects the role of EJT itself in the strategy for Europeanization of national judges. It concludes by discussing other strategic areas where important synergies with EJT can be improved for the purpose of judicial Europeanization, notably the enhancement of transnational judicial associations and the introduction of knowledge management tools in national systems. The article is based on the analysis of documents and scientific literature as well as on empirical research and semi-structured interviews conducted by the author in 2013 and 2014.

framed within the broader enlargement policies, 4 defines itself as the "the principal platform and promoter for the training and exchange of knowledge of the European judiciary". Its establishment is connected to the objectives of spreading a shared European judicial culture and better coordination in judicial training in the EU. In the eyes of its founders, its task was to act as a forum for the exchange of experiences and as a European provider of training in the EU complementing the training provided by national institutions.
In this regard, it is useful at the outset to distinguish three levels of EJT policies. The first level is the very definition of judicial training as a relevant policy field and the selection of the main training priorities. The second level is the definition of training needs and standards within the prioritized areas and the coordination of training activities and the third, is the implementation, i.e. the organization and provision of training activities. Very briefly, EJTN centrality lies first at the level of the definition of training standards, although its activities also touch upon the first and third levels. Besides the EJTN, a number of institutional actors shape quite a complex, if not confused, institutional framework for EJT policies at these three different levels.
The political focus and financial pressures resulted in discussion of the extent of EU competence and the ability of the EJTN to coordinate an efficient framework for achieving the Europeanization objectives set by the Commission. 5 It is therefore essential to bring into focus the functioning of the EJTN, which receives the greatest share of EJT funding, as confirmed by the implementation of the 2014-2020 Justice Program. Up to now, the efforts of EU institutions in relation to the EJT and EJTN have not been matched by equal attention on the part of scholars, although there have been important studies on other aspects of judicial training in the European area. 6 This article aims to present the origins of the EJTN, its organization and its peculiar role in the EJT field (parts 2-4), as well as outlining its distinctive features (part 5). In conclusion, I discuss the two areas in need of improvement outside the EJT framework stricto sensu, which I consider essential in order to achieve the Europeanization objectives: networking and knowledge management (part 6).

The Establishment of EJTN
The origins of the EJTN date back to the adoption of the Bordeaux Charter in October 2000, providing for the creation of an informal network of national judicial training institutions (the Réseau de Bordeaux -Bordeaux Network -operative since the 1 st January 2001). This was followed by the presentation, on the initiative of the French Government, 7 of a proposal for the establishment of a European Judicial Training Network. 8 The legal basis for the French proposal rested in articles 31 and 34(2) of the EU Treaty; this framed the EJTN in the context of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, explaining why the 2000 Bordeaux meeting involved only criminal law judges and prosecutors. While the European Parliament tried to broaden the scope of the Network to cooperation in civil and commercial matters (article 65 of the Treaty), the Council decided not to follow up the French initiative. It nevertheless encouraged the Association -created in 2004 under Belgian law -to establish close links with European institutions, and encouraged the Member States to support it. 9 4 At the very beginning, a stream of activities was devoted to helping national institutions of newcomers to assess and improve their training capacity, interview with Luis S. Pereira, EJTN's Secretary-General, 22 nd May 2013. This was made clear in the original French proposal on the establishment of the EJTN (infra par. 2), and further in the EJTN Charter. 5 On the criticism of the Commission policy-oriented approach, see H. van  According to the EJTN's former Secretary General, the Network is a very interesting example of a private association of public bodies. Its establishment is symbolic of the interpenetration between a bottom-up initiative and a top-down attempt by the European Parliament to institutionalize a training structure within the EU institutional framework. This attempt was not fully backed by the Council of the EU or by the rapporteur at the European Parliament, whose "restraint" was grounded in legal considerations (the absence of a clear legal basis in the Treaty). Sure enough, the refusal of the French initiative was not only due to legal considerations, but also to the opposition by some delegations, unwilling to legitimize a further nibbling of competences by EU institutions in a sensitive area for national legal identities. It was also stressed that the new institution could impair in some way the competencies of the previously established judicial networks for criminal matters and for civil and commercial matters. 10 Although the result was the establishment of a private law association, the approach of the European Parliament demonstrated the growing attention to this policy area, revealing current problems in relation to the balance between the European and the national levels with respect to judicial training policies.
Since its establishment, the EJTN has been progressively "incorporated" into European governance.

Organization and Functioning of EJTN
At present, institutions in charge of judicial training in Member States along with the European Law Academy of Trier (ERA) are members of the EJTN. In addition, EJTN has "observers" representing candidate countries and EU institutions. 11 The Network is based on the principle of horizontal dialogue and equality of members within the General Assembly. Nonetheless, as in any network, "leading" and more active institutions emerge, be it for prestige or just for financial or other practical reasons. From a financial perspective, Member States' contributions are a drop in the ocean. As an example, article 4 (d) of the Council Decision 2007/126/JHA establishing the Program "Criminal Justice" for the period 2007 to 2013, introduced an operating grant to co-finance expenditure related to the permanent work program of the EJTN. In 2011, the grant covered 95% of the Network's budget, while Member States contributed to the remaining 5% according to five different funding bands -the main contributors being UK, Germany, Italy and France. The total budget (including membership fees) was around € 6,000,000. 12 This ratio, as well as the total sum of the operating grant, changed substantially over time. In 2009, the total budget was around € 1,000,000, of which 70% was covered by the EU operating grant and 30% by membership subscriptions. In 2010 it was raised to around € 3,500,000, of which 90% was covered by the EU operating grant and 10% by membership subscriptions. 13 Between 2007 and 2011, the EJTN received around € 7,152,071.31 out of a planned annual budget of up to €9.5 million, i.e. 75% of the funds allocated. With the implementation of the new Justice Program, funding was raised substantially. The EJTN has been assigned an operating grant of € 7,880,000 for the year 2015 14 .
In relation to members' activism, a reliable criterion to gauge the most active members is the level of participation of national institutes in the Network's activities, i.e. how many magistrates they "send". Indeed, it is the training institutions' task to bring participants in, while the Network provides training. Participation of members' representatives in the subworking group of the WG Program is also a useful indicator. Besides those already mentioned, active members are the Spanish, Dutch and Romanian academies, and the Academy of European Law in Trier. 15 at the time of judicial training, and therefore EJTN observer), thus describes the process of creation of the Network: «It was an interesting process, I was amazed to see that it was at least to a certain degree influenced by politics, but in the end I think that the result was extremely good», interview with Andrej Kmecl, Administrative court of Ljubljana, 6 th June 2013. 10 G. Oberto, Schema ipertestuale di una relazione sul tema: la cooperazione giudiziaria in materia civile nell'ambito dei Paesi dell'Unione Europea. La Rete europea di formazione giudiziaria, available at: http://giacomooberto.com/csm/uditori/cooperazionecivile.htm, last accessed on 19 June 2013. Article 3.2(f) of the French proposal contained notably a reference to the European Judicial Network in criminal matters. In addition, the Council pushed the EJTN to "foster the consistency and efficiency of its members' training activities," and to "reinforce its autonomy and independence and increase its capacity to finance its activities", H. E. Hartnell, "EUstitia: Institutionalizing Justice", cit., p. 115 11 At present, EJTN has eleven observers; among them, one from the Council of Europe (The Lisbon Network) and one from the European Commission (DG Justice). The EJTN has three Working Groups. The Group "programs" is devoted to all training activities -courses, seminars, workshops -except exchanges. This Group includes five sub-working groups composed of experts and trainers coming from different Member States (7/8 members per sub-group). The working groups focus on the jurisdictions of civil, criminal and administrative law (the latter dealing with different areas of law such as environmental and tax law, and not only administrative law in the traditional sense), on training of trainers, and linguistics. It is up to sub-groups to identify training needs and propose concrete training activities to the Secretariat, which allocates a budget for the activity in question. The budgeted activities are then submitted to the Commission in order to check the availability of funds within the framework of the operating grant; the European Commission usually does not object to the proposed activities. 16 In order to define training needs, the sub-working groups get input from Network members that assess needs in different ways (contacts with the councils for the judiciary and trainers, feedback from appeal courts, reports on legal implementation, etc.). Training needs are nothing more than the sum of the most common training needs of training institutions whose realization is considered to have an added value if realized within the European platform, i.e. bringing people together from Member States. The EJTN has therefore a decentralized approach in the planning phase. Decentralization is a keyconcept that also applies when it comes to the execution phase. Once the list of training activities in the budget is approved, EJTN looks for "volunteers" among its members; it is up to the member 'volunteers' to organize the planned activities, and not the task of EJTN to allocate them. Finally, the EJTN funds magistrates' attendance at the training activities; magistrates coming from observer institutions may also attend the activities, but their participation is not -and cannot be -supported by the EJTN. 17 While the Catalogue Program includes courses organized autonomously by Network members that are open to foreign magistrates (some of them being co-financed by the EU), all other activities listed on the website are managed by the Network. 18 EJTN activities cover two main sectors. One concerns training activities: besides the exchange program started in 2006, the EJTN provides a platform for the promotion and coordination of a different set of training seminars (also for trainers), Themis competitions, and e-learning programs. The other pillar concerns the elaboration of training curricula and modules, and the selection of best practices for the use of training institutions. 19 In 2012, the EJTN organized training activities for 2425 magistrates, rising to 2756 in 2013. 20 Between 2005 and 2013, 9239 magistrates participated in training initiatives (apart from the Catalogue Program). As it is not difficult to find a sufficient number of magistrates matching the identified training needs, considering that altogether Member States have around 160,000 magistrates, the large majority of national magistrates and related training needs is not targeted. Therefore, it is not a massive program. The EJTN is indeed based on the idea of "testing" training actions to be developed at a later stage at the national level, or to undertake initiatives that cannot be organized solely at a national level. 21 As the EJTN's former Secretary-General put it, "…training […] developed at the EU level […] is targeted to a reduced number of people, should be seen as a complement of the training provided nationally, and should only be executed when there is an added value resulting from the exchange of experience of the practice of EU law among the magistrates coming from different members". 22

Expanding EJTN Activities: The Aiakos Program and the Pilot Project on European Judicial Training
The EJTN's portfolio of activities has increased substantially since the Network was established. The most recent advance was the implementation of the Aiakos Exchange Program and of lot 1 of the Pilot project on European judicial training ("Study on best practices in training of judges and prosecutors").
the steering committee of the then informal Bordeuax Network delegated ERA, the École Nationale de la Magistrature and the Spanish Escuela Judicial to approach the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission to submit observations. Until 2005, the Academy of European Law provided for the secretariat of the Network. 16 Interview with Luis S. Pereira, cit. 17 Costs, including travel (up to a certain amount) and per-diem (including accommodation, meals, local transportation costs) are therefore borne by the EJTN. Whether judges, when participating in EJTN activities, are considered within or rather without their working hours, is a matter to be defined at the domestic level. Aiakos is an exchange program for judicial trainees and young magistrates, inspired, subject to appropriate modifications, by the successful Erasmus Program. 24 The Program has its political basis in the 2011 Communication of the European Commission and in the Council conclusions on European judicial training of October 2011, which invited the European Commission 'to initiate a new exchange for newly appointed judges and prosecutors'. Different from the previously established training program, Aiakos is grounded on the reciprocity principle; it envisages one-week of training overseas and one at home, during which the visiting trainees take part in the same training session as their hosting counterpart.
In its pilot phase the Program is funded through an annual operating grant, until 2014. So far, 11 countries have participated in the exchange program on a voluntary basis that amounts to approximately 300 young magistrates per year but the idea is to substantially raise the number of trainees. The number of participant countries should also increase and the proposal of the Belgian institute to make participation mandatory by integrating it in the initial training programs of national institutions is under consideration. This raises -once again -the issue of the legal basis for European training activities, the present one not being considered sufficient to make participation mandatory. Further problems lie on the financial side (will co-funding be guaranteed in a period of harsh financial crisis?) and on the organizational side (do national training institutions have sufficient human resources to ensure effective exchanges?).
The Pilot project on European judicial training is a new tool implemented on the initiative of the European Parliament. It marks an essential change in the European Parliament's approach towards European judicial training, that is to say a move towards a more decentralized approach 'that fully respects the principle of subsidiarity and the judicial independence'. 25 The Pilot project includes four lots aimed at identifying and promoting best practice in training of justice professionals and promoting cooperation between existing stakeholders, including those associations recognized as judicial networks at the European level whose creation is notoriously characterized by a bottom-up approach. The European Commission assigned the EJTN the implementation of the first lot concerning the study and selection of best practice in the training of magistrates. 26

EJTN's distinctive features: a summary
From its inception, EJT policies have undergone swift but non-linear evolution. This applies to the EJTN as well; whose identity took shape over the course of time. At the time of its establishment, it was not clear whether the Network should be characterized by a centralized or decentralized approach; whether it should act as a coordinating entity or a training provider (in the latter case directly challenging usual national and other transnational providers); 27 whether its creation 23 Data are available in EJTN annual reports. 24 Training methodologies include workshops, discussion, mock-trials, and institutional visits. The Erasmus Program is a student exchange program between EU Member States established by the European Commission in 1987. It is considered as one the EU most successful initiatives based on a social constructivist approach.  27 In this regard, the issue of who should hold the responsibility in the field of European Judicial Training also concerned some problematic relations between the EJTN and the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary. Competition dynamics involved indeed such relations; the latter seeing itself as the one bearing the main role in judicial issues, interview with Monique van der Goes, Director of ENCJ permanent office in Brussels, 23 rd May 2013. Normally, at the national level judicial schools do not act autonomously but in connection to the councils for the judiciary (at least in some States), while at the European level the network representing national judicial schools operates "in solitude". This situation has its historical and practical reasons. On the one hand, the EJTN was created before the ENCJ, and more or less formal cooperation activities among training institutions existed long before cooperation among the councils. On the other hand, an institutional flaw characterizes the ENCJ, affecting its representativeness: only those institutions that should be framed within a provisional enlargement policy or a more systematic strategy for the achievement of the European Area of Justice. Subsequent evolution clarified these aspects. By now, EJTN (and by implication the overall EJT system), is characterized by four key-concepts: co-operation, decentralization, complementarity, targeting.
Implementation of judicial training -definition of priorities, standards and needs -is the result of co-operation between the EJTN, its members and the European Commission as the funding entity, as well as "European-level professional organizations". The EJTN not only is a network; it also operates as a network. Similarly, EJT is a highly fragmented field where cooperation among stakeholders is well developed and the EJTN plays, together with the Commission, a coordinating role. The above-described Pilot project is illustrative of this co-operative trend involving a wide array of stakeholders within, what still is, a highly competitive and fragmentary landscape.
The scope of judicial training objectives set by the Commission highlights the inability of the Commission itself to have an overwhelming influence, leaving a margin of action to the EJTN. In spite of its progressive "incorporation" into the system of European governance, the Network functions in a decentralized manner both in the implementation of training policy and the provision of training services. Thus, the EJTN coordinating role does not equal centralization. There is a decentralizing trend in the overall EJT system, in spite of the apparently centralizing approach of the Commission and some of its agencies (think, for example, to the European Asylum Support Office with regard to training in asylum law). 28 The idea that EJT should be provided at the European level is indeed regressing. Member States have the main responsibility for judicial training especially from a European perspective. This trend is apparent in the attention to national best practice in the Pilot project and in the funding of national programs for judicial Europeanization (such as European Gaius in Italy, increasing the number of courses on European law). The centralist approach exemplified by the creation of the Academy of European Law in Trier (and partly also of the Centre for Judges and Lawyers at the European Institute of Public Administration in Maastricht) prevailed for some time. The conflict between the two approaches was apparent during the establishment of the EJTN. More recently, the establishment of a centralized body for EJT was the subject of little discussion. In the European Parliament Resolution on the role of national judge in the EU of July 2008, reference was made to a "European Judicial Academy" composed of the EJTN and the Academy of European Law, building on the experience of the European Police College. 29 The proposal by the European Parliament was quickly dropped. There is no longer any question of the creation of a more centralized European Judicial Academy -and if a problem of centralization exists, this is more the consequence of a lack of interest and of Member States' inclination to delegate responsibility.
Decentralization introduces the third key concept, i.e. the complementary nature of EJTN activities -and in general of EJT as such. EJT and the EJTN should not replace the responsibility of Member States to train magistrates in European law; European law has indeed to be considered an integral part of the national legal systems. 30 Training provided by the EJTN is not -and cannot be -large scale. Keeping in mind that from 2005 to 2013 the EJTN organized exchange and training activities for around 14,834 magistrates, training objectives set by the Commission are unlikely to be attained. 31 Sure enough, these figures do not take into account those activities organized by national training institutes through regional are independent and autonomous from the Government and the Parliament can be indeed members of the Network. Member States that do not have a council or have a non-independent body are therefore merely observers. 28 The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) is an "independent" executive body whose managing board is constituted by the representatives of the national Governments and of the Commission. According to article 6 of the Regulation establishing EASO, the Office has been being granted a responsibility to train judges. This was seen as a problem, as EASO would have an "executive" approach and may carry out policies influenced by the European Commission. In addition, EASO competence in training exceeded also the boundaries set by the Lisbon Treaty, given that training concerned an area -administrative law -not mentioned by the Treaty. After its establishment, representatives of the European section of the International Association of the Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ), which had been invited to informally join the structure, raised the problem of independence, asserting that EASO could not train judges because it was part of the "executive" branch of the EU structure.  31 We can also keep in mind that from its creation in 1992 up to 2013, the Academy of European Law (ERA) provided European law training for around 100.000 among judges, prosecutors and other legal professionals; since 2000, around 11.000 magistrates participated in ERA's training activities, W. Heusel, "The Academy of European Law (ERA) Experience with Judicial Training", in European Parliament, The Training of Legal Practitioners, cit., p. 127. cooperation, by the European Institute of Public Administration and other providers but, in any case, the number of judges participating in training activities would be far below 25,000. This somehow clashes with the ambitious (and unrealistic) large scale training program outlined by the Commission in 2011. The first two Commission Reports on EJT adopt a fairly flexible approach in monitoring the achievement of the self-defined ambitious (but I would rather call them "ambiguous") objectives set in 2011. Criteria included training in EU law or Member State law organized at the national level. Of course, this is essential and this is why attention is now given to the incorporation of EU law and comparative law in national training catalogues -but this is not EJT strictly speaking, just training in EU law. The concept of EJT builds on methodological considerations rather than on positive law content. Incidentally, one can presume that the insistence by the Commission on large scale training of legal professionals and the confirmation of EJT as one of the priorities of the Justice Program, aims more at keeping the topic on the agenda than actually aiming at success in the attainment of the defined objectives. 32 After all, practical limitations counter the large scale and centralized approach. They are not just of a financial nature (training is indeed very expensive and only a minority of magistrates would be able to participate in truly European training activities). Other problems concern time and workload, as well as language (many magistrates do not know foreign languages in the context of of judicial work) and the cultural constraints of the authorizing bodies. The 2014-2020 Justice Program partially addresses these problems.
Complementary character is acknowledged by the development of the concept of "European added value" (EAV). If judicial training in European law is primarily a national task, the transnational stage has to be involved only residually where there is EAV. 33 The Commission agrees that its role is to give incentives (financial in particular) for common training measures having EAV and not to compete with Member States in the organization of judicial training in EU law. 34 The concept of EAV, which was debated at the 2013 Conference on judicial training promoted by the European Commission, 35 is therefore at the core of considerations about who is going to do what. ERA's Director stressed that training needs/priorities having EAV are a "moving target": they cannot be determined once and for all and the EAV -i.e. the usefulness of bringing together magistrates from different countries -has to be assessed empirically, having regard to the available resources. In addition, the EAV of a topic may lack a general character, being instead limited to a purely national context. This would be the case in new accession countries where EU (basic) training is still weak. Just after the accession of Croatia, the Croatian judicial academy did not have sufficient expertise in EU law; the only competent trainers hired by the Academy came from the University and a group of internal experts only recently started to develop. 36 In brief, EAV is an open concept, with undefined boundaries. 37 Accordingly, the EJTN's activities are becoming more and more targeted regarding both the beneficiaries and the type of activities. Efforts are, thus, being concentrated on the development of more effective activities, such as exchanges.
To sum up, the actual situation seems to be one of a smoothly functioning decentralized system for the purposes of defining training needs and standards and implementing training activities. The European Union's rhetorical and unrealistic approach to large scale training may actually turn into an effective process of Europeanization of national judiciaries through EJT. As a Slovenian judge (and EU trainer) put it: EJTN is «a good mirror of Europe with all the complications and all the misunderstanding and of course, at the end, the common goal. Because I think that, as far as I see, EJTN now functions quite smoothly, it is very efficient in its work and I am glad we have it». 38 At the same time the very features of EJT and EJTN, and especially its smaller scale character, indicate the need to put EJT and EJTN in context, without mixing up means (EJT and EJTN) and ends (Europeanization of national judiciaries). This is where I am going to conclude.

Conclusion: Synergies for Effective Judicial Europeanization
The complementary character of EJT brings the responsibility of Member States in providing a European education to their magistrates. Other aspects should be pointed out, laying down a strategy for achieving the objectives of EJT through synergy with measures to be adopted in areas related to -but outside the scope -of EJT stricto sensu. In this regard, it would be interesting to closely examine the allocation of funding in the 2014 Commission Implementing Decision of the Justice Program. This is not however the focus of these pages. In conclusion, I will pinpoint the relevance of two areas that should be enhanced: judicial networking and knowledge management.
Judicial networks -i.e. networks of judicial professionals -have received a good deal of attention in many research activities during the last few years. 39 Although there is a serious need for accurate empirical studies showing differences between networks and their actual impact, one can say that judicial networks are a forum in which informal discussion and exchange happens. The Commission included some of them as partners in the achievement of the Area of Justice, although mainly those representing supreme courts. Judicial networks contribute to EJT activities funded by the Commission, for example in the field of competition or environmental law, and are one of the sources from which EU law trainers are drawn. At least theoretically (research should be encouraged to investigate the actual impact), judicial networks play an important role as enhancers of convergence of national practices, linking the European and domestic level as well as the different national "compartments" at the domestic level. The Association of European Administrative Judges (AEAJ) works, for example, through specialized working groups where a limited number of judges discuss selected cases. 40 In many cases, such informal training covers areas neglected by EJT (analysis of European jurisprudence through the lenses of national case law, procedural differences at the national level etc.). 41 The usefulness of networking has also been acknowledged in particular, in those areas where cases are few and the legal basis is extremely complex (environmental matters or, to a lesser extent, asylum cases). 42 Much of the judicial knowledge is indeed built not through training, but rather through daily work (learning by doing). Therefore, in those areas where judges cannot gather relevant experience, there is a need to share knowledge with other colleagues from other countries who may have already dealt with the same legal issues. As one judge put it when interviewed, "…you need other ways to train, and there is nobody else who can tell you what goes on in such cases but your colleagues who went through it […] That's why networking is so extremely important". 43 In fine, activities carried out by networks of judicial professionals have minor costs compared to professionalized training. 44 For these reasons, judicial networks should be more vigorously supported. However no matter how important, mere support is not enough for improving the "descending" function of judicial networks. 45 The ability to harmonize judicial practices is undermined by the weak link between network members and their national judiciary of origin. 46 The impact of these activities may therefore be questioned in the following way: is knowledge shared within the network also able to be spread outside throughout national judiciaries? Strengthening the link is therefore essential. Here, knowledge management tools, and particularly the creation of groups of EU law experts as court coordinators, can make the difference.
As for other knowledge management tools (legal databases and e-justice), the establishment of EU law coordinators aims precisely at enhancing communication and the spread of knowledge among magistrates. The Eurinfra project, developed since 2000 by the Dutch Minister of Justice and Council for the Judiciary, is the forerunner in this regard, establishing a network of court coordinators specialized in European law. 47 One of these is the Italian European Gaius project, inspired by the Dutch Eurinfra project, whose second pillar involves the establishment of EU law expert judges. Similar initiatives have spread across Europe, showing how court coordinators can create synergies with transnational legal networks (and EJT activities). EU law court coordinators are usually involved in such activities, being selected for that purpose precisely because of such European involvement. One example is that of the Slovenian Administrative Court, whose judges are transnationally involved and where a contact judge for European matters (actively participating in networks) was established informally in 2005, on initiative of the Court president. 48 A similar initiative has been launched in Croatia at the level of the Supreme Court, where a judge has been appointed to establish an EU law service. 49 Another example is drawn from the Hungarian judicial system, where a new system of EU law coordinators in different fields of law has been established at the level of the National Judicial Council, institutionalizing the Association of EU law judges. Here too, judges involved in transnational activities coordinate this new entity. 50 Incidentally, the system was established on the initiative of the current head of the National Judicial Council, who has been active in the transnational labor court judges' networks. 51 Where the idea of court coordinators has not been introduced (and the need for such a professional figure is not felt), a similar function may be exercised by judicial associations, such as, in the case of Austria, the Association of Asylum Law Judges, now absorbed into the Association of Administrative Federal Tribunal Judges.
Sure enough, establishment of this kind of instruments as well as their actual functioning can encounter resistance, due to the institutional culture that filters the specific understanding of the principles of accountability and independence. Discussion among judges may only be acknowledged with difficulty in countries where independence is conceived in absolute or individualistic terms. This is, however, an area where highly effective measures can be undertaken, and support is emanating from European institutions. In particular, the Parliament took the first steps in encouraging similar instruments, calling on the Commission "to foster and sponsor national court coordinators of European law and the emergent interconnection of the national networks of court coordinators". 52