(Brussels) “Victims of crime deserve protection, support and respect. This report confirms the need to ensure that already adopted victims’ rights are correctly applied in practice”. The EU Commissioner for Justice Vera Jourová said this to mark the fifteenth European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism. The European Commission has today welcomed the report on “Strengthening victims’ rights: from compensation to reparation”, written by Joëlle Milquet, Special Adviser to President Juncker on the matter. The opinions expressed in the report are personal, the Commission explained, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Commission. The report, however, met with great interest in Brussels. Commissioner Jourová added: “We will analyse Joëlle Milquet’s recommendations to see what practical steps can be made at European and national level to further improve victims’ access to compensation”. The report shows that “victims often have difficulty accessing justice and receiving compensation due to a lack of information, insufficient support, overly-restrictive eligibility criteria or procedural hurdles”. The report takes stock of the best practices in terms of protection of the rights of the victims at national and European level. It also makes 41 recommendations on how to improve the protection of these rights, as well as victims’ access to justice and compensation.