The European Commission presented on May 30, 2008, a proposal for a decision on the creation of the European system of criminal records information (ECRIS). The proposal, which must be validated by the Council, has clarified the modalities of a Framework Decision on exchange of information extracted from criminal records that the Council had discussed in June 2007.The system is designed to assist national courts, which often pronounce sentences solely on the basis of the record of convictions generated by their national registry, a total ignorance of convictions in other Member States.
The proposal establishes a general architecture of the electronic exchange of information and paves the way for future developments relating to interconnection of national criminal records. The ECRIS is a system based on a decentralized architecture, in which criminal records are only kept in databases managed by Member States.