You're listening to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcast on EU-US cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs.

9-11 and its aftermath highlighted one special need above all others, the need to work together with international partners in the area of justice and home affairs. Since then, the EU and the US have been working together more closely than ever in this field

under the watchful eye of the European Parliament. Join us in a special investigation.

Despite formal cooperation between the EU and the US on justice and home affairs dating back to

1995, it is since the 11th of September attacks in 2001 that cooperation has gone up a gear.

So much so that today the two enjoy the most advanced cooperation in this field, especially

in cross-border law enforcement and intelligence and counter-terrorism, which have been key priorities since 2001.

Cooperation has focused in particular on the fight against terrorism and transnational crime, law enforcement, personal data protection, border management, migration and border controls, and cybercrime.

And cooperation is bearing fruit, regular high-level contacts and meetings,

operational cooperation between security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies and legal agreements

between the two have led to hundreds of successful joint operations each year and many foil terrorist

plots. However, huge challenges remain. Indeed, revelations of US mass surveillance programs in Europe

have seriously damaged transatlantic trust and intensified Europeans' concerns about the way

in which data privacy and information exchanges are handled on the other side of the Atlantic.

Furthermore, US detainee policies, border control and security measures and differences in terrorist designation lists add to the existing tensions.

But let's first look at the positive results of this transatlantic cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.

Stay with us.

To counter the terrorist threat, joint operations have been run against identified terrorist networks,

attacking their financial lifelines and online communications.

According to Europol, in 2014 alone, more than 600 international operations targeting various forms of crime

were initiated in cooperation with US federal agencies.

That's quite a number. And this teamwork led to many successes, for instance, against the so-called

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