<P>At its meeting in Brussels on 10 and 11 December 2009, the European Council adopted a new multiannual programme entitled ‘The Stockholm Programme – an open and secure Europe serving and protecting citizens’. In the Stockholm Programme the European Council considered that the process of abolishing all intermediate measures (the exequatur) should be continued during the period covered by that Programme. At the same time the abolition of the exequatur should also be accompanied by a series of safeguards.</P>