News and events from the project

The EuroLegalBot consortium held its first project coordination meeting on 14 January 2025, marking the official start of the project activities.

The meeting brought together representatives of the consortium partners involved in the development of EuroLegalBot, the AI-supported chatbot designed to assist justice practitioners in the use of the European Arrest Warrant. During the meeting, partners discussed the overall project objectives, the governance structure, the implementation timeline and the responsibilities connected to each work package.

A central part of the discussion focused on the need to build a structured repository of judicial data related to the European Arrest Warrant and similar cross-border judicial cooperation procedures. Partners addressed the importance of collecting, organising and regularly updating legal materials, including judgments, legislation, procedural information and specialised legal sources. This exchange laid the foundation for the dataset creation activities that would later support the chatbot’s knowledge base.

The consortium also discussed the technical integration of EuroLegalBot. Particular attention was paid to the possibility of enabling users to query legal databases through natural language, as well as to the role of artificial intelligence in retrieving relevant information from verified sources. The partners explored how the chatbot could support justice practitioners not only by providing legal guidance, but also by assisting in the preparation of EAW-related documents and annexes.

The meeting further introduced the main work packages of the project. WP1 focuses on project management and coordination, WP2 on dataset creation, WP3 on chatbot development, WP4 on piloting activities, and WP5 on communication, dissemination and exploitation. Partners also discussed the future presentation of the chatbot to practitioners, the recruitment of participants for the pilot phase, the organisation of an online induction course and the importance of a strong communication strategy.

The kick-off meeting represented an important first step for EuroLegalBot, aligning the consortium around a shared roadmap and confirming the project’s ambition to develop a reliable, user-oriented and legally grounded digital tool for European judicial cooperation.

On 21–22 October 2025, the EuroLegalBot chatbot was presented during the VR-DigiJust Symposium, held in Venice at the Local Police Headquarters. The event was organised by Agenfor International Foundation, with the support of the Court of Appeal of Venice and the active contribution of all VR-DigiJust project partners. Although originally planned in Rimini, the Symposium was relocated to Venice to facilitate participation and strengthen the institutional connection with the justice sector.

The Symposium, organised within the framework of the VR-DigiJust – Digitalising Justice via Combined Virtual Reality Training project, focused on the role of Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and digital tools in judicial training and practice. Over two days, the event brought together judges, prosecutors, lawyers, law enforcement authorities, justice operators, policymakers, academics and project representatives to discuss how digital technologies can support training, cooperation, procedural fairness and access to justice.

Within this broader context, EuroLegalBot was presented as a concrete example of how EU-funded projects can build on each other’s results to develop innovative tools for justice practitioners. The presentation focused on the chatbot’s role as an AI-supported legal assistant dedicated to the European Arrest Warrant, and on its integration with the digital training environment developed under VR-DigiJust.

A central element of the event was the presentation and testing of the European Virtual Judicial Academy, a platform developed within the VR-DigiJust project and adopted by the European Judicial Training Network. The platform integrates AI-based avatars, virtual reality environments and secure databases to deliver interactive training to justice professionals. Participants were introduced to its virtual spaces, multilingual avatars, voice-to-text interfaces and curated legal knowledge bank.

This setting provided an ideal opportunity to present EuroLegalBot as an exploitation outcome connected to the Academy’s technological infrastructure. The EuroLegalBot chatbot relies on avatarisation and natural language processing to make interaction with legal information more intuitive, immersive and user-friendly. Its avatarised version is designed to assist justice practitioners in understanding and applying the EAW mechanism, supporting both training and practical consultation scenarios.

During the Symposium, the presentation highlighted how EuroLegalBot can support practitioners by offering structured access to legal information, procedural guidance and multilingual interaction. The chatbot was presented not as a substitute for legal reasoning or judicial decision-making, but as a support tool that can help users navigate complex legal materials and strengthen their familiarity with EU judicial cooperation instruments.

The event also allowed participants to reflect on the broader relevance of AI and VR in the justice sector. Through practical workshops and simulations, participants explored how immersive technologies can support training on cross-border investigations, digital evidence, procedural cooperation and the use of European instruments such as the European Investigation Order. These discussions reinforced the importance of human oversight, critical reasoning and ethical awareness when digital technologies are introduced into judicial contexts.

The presentation of EuroLegalBot during the VR-DigiJust Symposium therefore represented an important exploitation opportunity. It showed how the chatbot builds upon and extends previous project results, particularly the European Virtual Judicial Academy and the use of digital avatars, while contributing to a shared European effort to modernise judicial training and strengthen cross-border cooperation.

By connecting EuroLegalBot with the VR-DigiJust training ecosystem, the event demonstrated the value of continuity between EU-funded projects. It also confirmed the potential of AI-supported and avatar-based tools to make legal training more accessible, interactive and practice-oriented for justice professionals across Europe.

The EuroLegalBot chatbot was presented during the Final Policy Event of the SOURCE – Strengthening the use of EU judicial cooperation legal instruments in technology-based investigations project, held in Venice on 27–28 January 2026.

The event was organised and coordinated by the Court of Appeal of Venice, with the support of Agenfor International Foundation, and represented a key milestone in the SOURCE project’s dissemination and exploitation strategy. It brought together judges, prosecutors, lawyers, Ministry of Justice officials, law enforcement representatives, academics and project partners from different countries to discuss EU judicial cooperation in criminal matters, with particular attention to technology-based investigations and digital evidence.

The Final Policy Event aimed to present the main results of SOURCE and to promote dialogue among policymakers, practitioners and stakeholders on the use of EU judicial cooperation instruments in technology-based investigations. Discussions addressed instruments such as the European Arrest Warrant and the European Investigation Order, as well as the practical challenges arising in complex transnational investigations involving digital evidence and emerging technologies.

Within this framework, EuroLegalBot was presented as an innovative AI-supported tool capable of contributing to the broader European debate on digital justice. The chatbot was introduced as a specialised legal assistant designed to support justice practitioners in the use of the European Arrest Warrant, providing access to structured legal information, procedural guidance and multilingual support.

The presentation of EuroLegalBot was particularly relevant in the SOURCE context, as both projects address the practical implementation of EU judicial cooperation instruments. SOURCE focused on strengthening the use of legal instruments in technology-based investigations, while EuroLegalBot focuses on supporting practitioners through an AI-based chatbot dedicated to the EAW. Presenting the chatbot during this event therefore created a strong thematic connection between project results, practitioner needs and future exploitation opportunities.

The event also provided the opportunity to showcase innovative training tools, including the European Virtual Judicial Academy, which was presented among the project results and innovative tools for judicial cooperation. Participants expressed strong interest in AI and virtual reality approaches within judicial training, especially where such tools can support practitioners in dealing with complex cross-border cases and digital technologies.

EuroLegalBot was presented as part of this wider ecosystem of digital tools. Its architecture is designed to respond to the specific requirements of sensitive legal environments, where accuracy, transparency, traceability and data sovereignty are essential. The chatbot uses a controlled Retrieval-Augmented Generation approach, curated legal sources and auditable workflows to reduce the risks associated with generic AI systems and to support legally reliable responses.

The presentation also highlighted EuroLegalBot’s potential use in training and professional practice. Through natural-language interaction, the chatbot can help practitioners search legal materials, understand procedural requirements, access multilingual information and prepare for EAW-related tasks. Its avatarised version further enhances usability and accessibility, allowing users to interact with the system through a more intuitive and engaging interface.

The SOURCE Final Policy Event offered an important platform to disseminate EuroLegalBot beyond its own project activities and to present it to a multidisciplinary audience already engaged in EU judicial cooperation, digital investigations and procedural rights. The event confirmed the value of connecting EU-funded initiatives that address complementary aspects of criminal justice cooperation and digital transformation.

By presenting EuroLegalBot in this context, the consortium strengthened the visibility and exploitation of the chatbot, promoted synergies with other European projects, and contributed to a broader reflection on how trustworthy AI can support justice practitioners while preserving human oversight, legal responsibility and fundamental rights.

The EuroLegalBot consortium held its second Steering Committee meeting to review the progress achieved and plan the next phases of the project.

The meeting focused on the development and testing of the EuroLegalBot chatbot, with particular attention to its use in the context of European Arrest Warrant cases. Partners reviewed the state of implementation of the main work packages and discussed the technical, legal and organisational steps needed to move from dataset development to internal testing and piloting with practitioners.

A key update concerned the completion of Work Package 2, dedicated to dataset creation. The consortium discussed the methodological foundation of the dataset, the collection and organisation of relevant legal materials, and the importance of ensuring reliability, relevance and transparency. The dataset was presented as a structured knowledge base suitable for AI applications, incorporating curated legal cases, legislative materials and procedural information.

The meeting also included a technical discussion on the web crawling system designed to collect structured legal data from multiple European countries. The system was presented as a scalable tool capable of adapting to different legal portals, languages and source structures. Partners also addressed legal and ethical considerations linked to data access, terms of service, intellectual property rights and the use of official legal sources for AI-supported applications.

Another important part of the meeting concerned the upcoming internal testing and fine-tuning phase. The consortium discussed the involvement of 18 judicial practitioners, six per target country, who would test the chatbot’s functionality, usability and reliability. Partners were invited to prepare national EAW-related questions and scenarios, organise testing sessions, collect feedback and provide sub-reports for the relevant deliverables.

The Steering Committee also addressed the following piloting steps, including the recruitment of 60 practitioners per country, the organisation of three national presentation events in Italy, France and Greece, the online induction course for pilot participants and the need to update the legal database with new national legislation and case law. Partners also discussed the importance of human oversight, legal validation and the use of high-level judicial expertise to refine the chatbot’s legal reasoning.

The meeting confirmed the consortium’s commitment to developing EuroLegalBot as a reliable, transparent and practitioner-oriented tool, ensuring that its future testing and piloting phases remain closely aligned with the needs of judicial professionals and the legal safeguards required in criminal justice contexts.

The Italian EuroLegalBot national presentation event was held online on 15 April 2026, organised by Agenfor International Foundation and the Court of Appeal of Venice.

The event formed part of Task T4.1 – Chatbot Presentations to Justice Practitioners in Target Countries, which foresees the organisation of national events in Italy, France and Greece to introduce the EuroLegalBot chatbot to justice practitioners and relevant institutional stakeholders.

The Italian event gathered 25 participants, including law enforcement agents, magistrates, lawyers and court officers. The session aimed to familiarise participants with EuroLegalBot, its objectives and its potential applications in the field of European Arrest Warrant procedures and cross-border criminal judicial cooperation.

During the event, EuroLegalBot was presented as both an operational and training tool. The presentation highlighted the chatbot’s capacity to provide legal information based on curated and verified sources, support text and voice interaction, operate in multiple languages, export conversations and generate structured legal documents, including EAW-related annexes.

Particular attention was dedicated to the reliability and traceability of the chatbot’s sources, data protection safeguards, EU-based servers and the possibility of offline installation for sensitive contexts. These elements were especially relevant for practitioners working in criminal justice environments, where confidentiality, professional responsibility and legal accuracy are essential.

The live demonstration was one of the central parts of the event. Participants were guided through the chatbot interface and then had the opportunity to carry out hands-on testing using real or simulated legal scenarios. The testing focused on interface navigation, query submission, document generation, feedback mechanisms and practical usability.

The feedback collected during the Italian event was generally positive. Participants recognised EuroLegalBot’s potential to support legal research, procedural preparation, training activities and access to EAW-related information. At the same time, the session highlighted areas for further improvement, including technical stability, access procedures, source transparency and user guidance.

The Italian event represented an important step towards the piloting phase, helping the consortium collect practical feedback from end users and prepare for the broader engagement of justice practitioners in Italy and across the project’s target countries.

On 13 April 2026, the EuroLegalBot chatbot was presented during the Italian Mutual Learning Event organised within the framework of the ViSAR – Victim Support through Alignment of Remedies project.

The event, titled “Protection of Victims of Domestic Violence in the European Area: Rights, Cross-Border Protection and EU Tools”, took place in hybrid format at the Sala Consiliare di Palazzo Santo Stefano in Padua, with simultaneous online participation via Microsoft Teams. The training event gathered a multidisciplinary audience composed of magistrates, lawyers, judicial staff, psychologists, criminologists, social workers, restorative justice practitioners, educators, mediators, law enforcement officers, researchers, trainees and university students.

The ViSAR event focused on the protection of victims of domestic violence within the European judicial area, addressing victims’ rights, cross-border protection mechanisms and EU instruments. The introductory session presented ViSAR as a European initiative aimed at strengthening the effective implementation of EU law concerning victims’ rights, with particular attention to domestic violence and transnational protection. The discussion referred to key European legal instruments, including Directive 2012/29/EU on victims’ rights, Directive 2011/99/EU on the European Protection Order, the Istanbul Convention and Directive (EU) 2024/1385 on violence against women.

The first part of the event was dedicated to victims’ rights in the European Union. Contributions addressed the protection of victims in the European judicial area, the implementation of European standards in the Italian legal system, procedural participation, protection measures, assistance services and risk assessment tools in domestic violence cases. A second presentation explored victimisation processes in migratory contexts, focusing on the social, cultural and relational dimensions of victimhood and on the risks of invisibility and secondary victimisation affecting migrant victims.

Following the legal and criminological sessions, the event moved towards comparative approaches, operational practices and innovative tools. The programme included a dedicated block on “Innovative Tools and Practice”, with a presentation of the ViSAR website, the AI platform and the potential of AI-supported tools for justice operators. This was followed by an interactive session with an avatar, including practical simulations on cross-border cases and guided interaction with the platform.

Within this innovation-focused session, EuroLegalBot was presented as a concrete example of how AI-supported tools developed in EU-funded projects can be exploited beyond their original project framework and shared with wider communities of justice professionals. The presentation focused on the chatbot’s potential to support practitioners through natural-language interaction, structured access to legal information and AI-assisted training methodologies.

The EuroLegalBot chatbot was introduced as a specialised digital assistant developed to support judicial cooperation in criminal matters, with a specific focus on the European Arrest Warrant. Participants were shown how chatbot and avatar-based tools can facilitate access to judicial information, improve legal training and support blended learning environments. The discussion also highlighted how AI systems may assist practitioners by offering interactive guidance, contextual memory and personalised learning pathways, while remaining clearly positioned as support tools that do not replace professional legal assessment.

The presentation of EuroLegalBot was particularly relevant in the context of the ViSAR event, which focused on the practical implementation of EU legal standards and the need to bridge the gap between European norms and operational practice. While ViSAR addresses victims’ rights, domestic violence and cross-border protection, EuroLegalBot focuses on European judicial cooperation and the use of the European Arrest Warrant. Presenting the chatbot in this setting created a valuable opportunity to connect different EU project results around a shared objective: supporting justice practitioners with reliable, accessible and innovative tools.

The interactive component of the event generated significant interest among participants, especially regarding the practical use of AI systems for legal orientation and training. The presentation encouraged reflection on how digital tools can be integrated into professional learning environments, support multidisciplinary exchange and enhance practitioners’ capacity to navigate complex European legal frameworks.

By presenting EuroLegalBot during the ViSAR Mutual Learning Event, the project contributed to the exploitation and dissemination of its results beyond its own planned activities. The event strengthened synergies between EU-funded initiatives working in the justice sector and confirmed the importance of making project outputs visible, understandable and reusable for different communities of practitioners.

The participation in the ViSAR event therefore represented an important opportunity to promote EuroLegalBot among professionals active in victims’ rights, domestic violence, criminal justice and European judicial cooperation, while underlining the broader role of trustworthy AI in supporting access to legal knowledge and professional training.

The French EuroLegalBot national presentation event took place on 13 May 2026 at the Palais de l’Europe in Strasbourg, organised by the European Expertise & Expert Institute – EEEI.

The event was part of the EuroLegalBot national presentation cycle, designed to introduce the chatbot to justice practitioners and institutional stakeholders in the project’s target countries. In France, the event gathered 51 participants from courts of appeal, ministries of justice, expert associations, academia, the legal profession and institutional bodies.

The presentation introduced EuroLegalBot as an auxiliary support tool for judges, prosecutors, lawyers and other legal practitioners dealing with the European Arrest Warrant and cross-border criminal cooperation. The session focused on the chatbot’s browser-based access, natural-language interaction, multilingual capabilities and potential use in practical EAW-related questions.

Participants were introduced to the chatbot’s main functionalities and to its role as a tool for legal research, procedural orientation and familiarisation with EAW requirements. The event also supported the preparation of future pilot activities, giving practitioners a first opportunity to understand the project’s evaluation approach and the kind of feedback expected during the next phase.

The live demonstration showed how EuroLegalBot can be accessed through a browser and used to interact with legal information in natural language. The demonstration also highlighted the importance of multilingual interaction in cross-border judicial cooperation, where practitioners often need to navigate legal concepts, terminology and procedural rules across different national systems.

The discussion with participants confirmed strong interest in an AI-supported tool dedicated to the European Arrest Warrant. At the same time, participants underlined the importance of reliability, legal updating, source transparency and jurisdiction-specific contextualisation. These elements were considered essential for professional trust and for the future adoption of EuroLegalBot in legal and judicial environments.

The French event contributed significantly to the project’s stakeholder engagement strategy, reaching a broad audience and confirming the relevance of EuroLegalBot as a support tool for practitioners working in European judicial cooperation.

The Greek EuroLegalBot national presentation event was held in Athens on 28 May 2026, organised by the European Public Law Organization – EPLO.

The event brought together 20 participants, including prosecutors, lawyers, police officers, legal experts, academics and practitioners engaged in judicial cooperation and cross-border criminal proceedings. It formed part of Task T4.1, through which EuroLegalBot was presented in the three target countries to introduce justice practitioners to the chatbot and collect feedback ahead of the piloting phase.

The Greek event combined a legal seminar format with a technological demonstration. In addition to the presentation of EuroLegalBot and its functionalities, the event included detailed legal interventions by experienced prosecutors on practical and jurisprudential issues connected to the European Arrest Warrant.

The legal discussions addressed several key aspects of EAW implementation, including the completion of EAW forms, refusal grounds, prison conditions, proportionality, procedural guarantees, mutual trust, in absentia proceedings and divergent national interpretations. This made the event particularly relevant for practitioners dealing with complex EAW cases and cross-border judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

The technological presentation introduced EuroLegalBot’s architecture and main functionalities. Participants were informed about the use of Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Natural Language Processing, semantic legal retrieval, multilingual systems, traceability and auditability. The session also addressed GDPR compliance, alignment with the EU AI Act, digital sovereignty and the importance of trustworthy AI governance.

The live demonstration was conducted collectively in person, with the chatbot projected on screen and operated through a web browser. Participants explored browser-based use, natural-language interaction, multilingual queries and general EAW-related questions. The interface was generally considered intuitive and the interaction fluid, although some answers were perceived as too general or not sufficiently contextualised.

The feedback collected during the Greek event confirmed the potential relevance of EuroLegalBot for highly technical prosecutorial, law enforcement and legal contexts. Participants recognised the value of a tool capable of supporting legal research, procedural orientation and access to verified information, while also stressing the need for legal accuracy, source traceability, jurisdiction-specific answers and continuous human oversight.

The Greek presentation event provided valuable input for the refinement of EuroLegalBot and confirmed the importance of involving practitioners directly in the development and validation of AI-supported tools for criminal justice cooperation.

On 15 June 2026, the EuroLegalBot chatbot was presented during the Italian Mutual Exchange Learning Event organised in the framework of the ViSAR – Victim Support through Alignment of Remedies project.

The event, titled “Restorative Justice and Relational Violence: Legal Framework, Concrete Experiences and Testimonies”, took place in hybrid format at the Sala Consiliare di Palazzo Santo Stefano in Padua, with simultaneous online participation via Microsoft Teams. The initiative brought together a wide multidisciplinary audience, with approximately 50 participants attending in person and 240 participants connected online, including magistrates, lawyers, judicial staff, restorative justice practitioners, mediators, psychologists, social workers, victim support professionals, researchers, students and trainees.

The ViSAR event focused on the relationship between restorative justice and relational violence, offering participants legal analysis, criminological reflections, concrete practices and professional testimonies. The programme included contributions on the supranational and national legal framework governing restorative justice in domestic violence cases, the relational dimension of violence, practical experiences from the Restorative Justice and Mediation Centre of the Municipality of Padua, and a direct testimony concerning a restorative justice programme implemented in a case of relational violence.

Within this broader context of professional exchange and capacity building, EuroLegalBot was presented as an example of how EU-funded projects can generate practical tools to support justice professionals. The presentation highlighted the chatbot’s purpose, its connection with European judicial cooperation and its potential to assist practitioners in accessing structured legal information, navigating procedural questions and strengthening their understanding of European legal instruments.

The presentation of EuroLegalBot was particularly relevant in light of the event’s focus on tools supporting justice operators. While ViSAR addresses victims’ rights, restorative justice and the alignment of remedies, EuroLegalBot focuses on the European Arrest Warrant and cross-border judicial cooperation in criminal matters. Presenting the chatbot in this setting therefore created an opportunity to connect different EU project results around a shared objective: supporting practitioners with reliable, user-oriented and innovative resources.

Participants were introduced to EuroLegalBot as an AI-supported legal assistant designed to provide guidance on EAW-related matters through natural language interaction and access to curated legal sources. The chatbot was presented not as a replacement for professional judgement, but as a support tool that can help justice practitioners retrieve relevant information, explore procedural issues, and better understand the legal framework surrounding cross-border cooperation.

The event also provided an opportunity to reflect on the broader role of digital innovation in the justice sector. Discussions throughout the day repeatedly emphasised the importance of professional training, multidisciplinary dialogue, procedural safeguards and the protection of fundamental rights. In this framework, the presentation of EuroLegalBot showed how technological tools can complement legal expertise when they are developed with attention to transparency, reliability, data protection and human oversight.

By presenting EuroLegalBot during the ViSAR Mutual Exchange Learning Event, the consortium contributed to the exploitation and dissemination of project results beyond the project’s immediate activities. The initiative strengthened synergies between EU-funded projects working in the field of justice and confirmed the value of sharing practical outputs with diverse communities of practitioners.

The participation in the ViSAR event represents an important step in promoting EuroLegalBot among professionals active in criminal justice, victims’ rights, restorative justice and judicial cooperation. It also confirms the project’s commitment to ensuring that its results are not limited to technical development, but are actively shared, discussed and connected with wider European efforts to improve access to justice and support practitioners in their daily work.