The ECBA holds two conferences each year typically the last weekend of April and the first weekend in October.
The ECBA is very much of the view that there is no substitute for providing a forum where members can meet and debate issues of current interest and learn it first hand how those difficulties are dealt with in other jurisdictions. The conference venues rotate around Europe and in recent years we have had conferences in Rome, Strasbourg, Berlin, Dublin, Warsaw, Prague, Lisbon, Vienna, Edinburgh, Taormina, Lyon, Potsdam, Amsterdam, Bratislava and Madrid. Details of forthcoming conferences are on the website.
Papers from the previous conferences are also assessable on the website.
Topics of major importance such as the European Arrest Warrant and procedural safeguards are kept constantly under review. Reports from the national delegates always prove a popular feature of a conference in that they give a snapshot of developments across Europe. Regrettably it is the experience that where an effort to circumscribe the rights of a defendant succeeds in one jurisdiction it will be soon adopted in another.
While the conferences concentrate on serious subject matter the proceedings are assisted by a strong social programme and the conferences are renowned for their good atmosphere.