The first meeting of Worgking Group 1 Access to Justice and Legal Aid took place in Barcelona on 22-23 September 2008 and addressed the topic of "The universal meaning of Access to justice : common elements".

This meeting was an opportunity to share the international experts’ opinion and the participants’ approach on this topic from their own perspective and respective competences. Through an in-depth and detailed discussion, we were made familiar with the current situation related to the topics under discussion and the priorities and needs to be faced through training activities and study visits. We could also define how to better focus training seminars and training packages on this component and what are the major issues and the elements to be taken into account in order to achieve the objectives of this project. We discussed the expected results related to this topic as well as the dates and venues of the activities and the profile of the participants and experts/speakers, while bearing in mind the above-mentioned expected results. In addition, some recommendations on this topic were adopted and we started working out the final document to be delivered by the working group: the text of the Conclusions.