-12 NPMs are actors of change and can contribute to improving prison conditions in the EU 1.INTRODUCTION Project background This Handbook is written in the framework of the EU Project ‘Improving judicial cooperation across the EU through harmonised detention standards - the role of National Preventive Mechanisms’ implemented by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Fundamental and Human Rights, in cooperation with the Associazione Antigone, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. The latest case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as well as recommendations by international and national torture prevention bodies show that no European Union (EU) Member State (MS) has eradicated the problem of ill-treatment in prisons and that there are significant disparities between penal systems within the EU.2 This raises a major challenge for EU cross border cooperation. Judges must verify that fundamental rights, especially the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, are respected before they can implement mutual recognition instruments.3 The latest available statistics concerning the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) are exemplary: EU 2. See European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), ‘The European Court of Human Rights in Facts and Figures: 2019’ (2020) 10-11. There are 180 cases of violations of Art 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) in the Council of Europe Member States, 70 of which (as correctly stated in the text) concern EU countries. Those 70 cases translate into 55 direct cases of torture or ill-treatment (under Art 3), 10 cases where states have not conducted effective investigations (under Art 3) and 5 cases where a conditional violation was found (under Art 2/3). 3. Relevant EU instruments are: Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA Council), Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on the European Arrest Warrant and the Surrender Procedures (2002/584/JHA) Recital 12; and the JHA Council, Council Framework Decision, on the Application of the Principle of Mutual Recognition to Judgments in Criminal Matters Imposing Custodial Sentences or Measures Involving Deprivation of Liberty for the Purpose of their Enforcement in the European Union, 27 November 2008, 2008/909/JHA, Recital 13 and Art 3. See also, Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Aranyosi and Căldăraru; Joined Cases C‑404/15 and C‑659/15 PPU, 5 April 2016; CJEU, ML, C‑220/18 PPU, 25 July 2018; CJEU, Dumitru-Tudor Dorobantu. C‑128/18, 15 October 2019; and for a more detailed overview EUROJUST, ‘Case law by the Court of Justice of the European Union on the European Arrest Warrant’ (2020).