I. Introduction The protection of the EU budget is a shared responsibility between the EU – namely the Commission – and the Member States.1 In principle, the national (administrative or judicial) authorities conduct investigations and sanction those violations of EU law that are detrimental to EU financial interests, both when they concern expenditure (e.g., structural funds) and revenue (e.g., customs duties). The readers of eucrim are certainly familiar with the developments in EU law that have taken place since the 1970s, which have entailed increasing EU intervention on the punitive aspects of the enforcement of EU policies. Such intervention mainly... Read more

As part of its efforts to ensure better law-making at the EU level, together with the other EU institutions, the European Parliament is paying increasing attention to the added value of European action (“European added value”) as well as the costs of not taking action at the EU level (“cost of non-Europe”).
This article looks at the questions of how and to what extent these concepts can be applied to the area of EU criminal law. It will do so based on an assessment of two studies produced by the European Parliament’s Directorate for Impact Assessment and European Added Value:
- A European added value assessment accompanying a legislative initiative report on the reform of the European Arrest Warrant;
- A cost of non-Europe report on organised crime and corruption, supporting an own-initiative report on the matter.
The article concludes by identifying a number of challenges and limitations to measuring the … Read more

Where does the protection of human and fundamental rights stand in Europe, particularly in the European Union of the 28 European Member States? Where can the « common heritage of political traditions, ideals, freedom and the rule of law », which is evoked in the preamble of the ECHR, be seen today? The article responds to these questions by arguing first that the European Community (later the European Union) has – from the outset – been in a pursuit race regarding the effective protection of fundamental rights. Effects of this phenomenon are still apparent today. Examples given in the article show that the European Union falls short of the aforementioned common heritage. Regarding asylum rights, for example, the CJEU does not completely follow the ECtHR case law. Regarding the European Arrest Warrant, it was a recent call of the German Federal Constitutional Court that triggered a change of thinking at … Read more

I. Introduction To promote the protection of the financial interests of the European Union, the Commission has introduced a proposal for the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (in the following: EPPO initiative).1 This initiative is based on Arts. 86 and 325 TFEU that provide the competence for the European Union to counter fraud and other offenses affecting its financial interests. The objective of this initiative is to establish a coherent European system for more efficient and effective investigation and prosecution as well as to enhance the deterrence of offenses affecting the financial interests of the European Union. It… Read more

I. Introduction After many years of reflection and preparation, negotiations on the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (hereinafter EPPO)1 commenced three years ago.2 The proposal is well known to readers of the eucrim journal. During the course of negotiations in the Council of the European Union, the proposal has evolved substantially and in a number of ways, now envisaging a collegiate structure, shared competences between the EPPO and national authorities, and wide autonomy on the part of the European Delegated Prosecutors handling the cases, accompanied by supervisory powers vested in… Read more

The notion of the “cost of non-Europe” brings us back to 1988, when a report bearing his name was published by Professor Paolo Cecchini, who had been asked at the time by the Delors Commission to investigate and quantify the untapped potential of the Single Market and to make the economic case for the removal of physical, technical, and fiscal barriers between the, then, twelve Member States of the European Communities.1 Now, in 2016, the Internal Market is perceived by citizens and politicians as a done deal, while the European Union is seen as a complex entity of a somehow… Read more