Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986) was an Italian politician, political opponent of the fascist regime in Italy and, for this reason, once interned on the island of Ventotene during World War II. On the small southern Italian island in the Gulf of Gaeta, together with Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni, he wrote the “Manifesto” – entitled “Per un’Europa libera e unita” (For a Free and United Europe) − calling for the establishment of a European federation as a reaction to the destructive excesses of nationalism, which had led to the Second World War. The Manifesto of June 1941 ideologically underpins the idea... Read more

I. Protecting the EU’s Financial Interests: A Shared Responsibility in a Complex Enforcement Environment The protection of the EU’s financial interests (PIF) implies a shared responsibility on the part of both the Union and the Member States. In this respect, Art. 325 para. 1 TFEU recalls the multiple levels of cooperation required to counter and combat fraud and other illegal activities affecting the financial interests of the Union. We can identify at least three levels or dimensions of cooperation in the PIF domain: The horizontal cooperation between the EU actors holding specific PIF responsibilities; The horizontal cooperation between the competent... Read more

I. Introduction Nombreux sont les domaines règlementés par le droit de l’Union qui s’appuient sur un double système de contrôle et de sanction. Le parfait exemple est la lutte contre la fraude préjudiciable aux intérêts financiers de l’UE, qui fait l’objet aussi bien d’enquêtes administratives que de poursuites pénales.1 Le développement de ce que la littérature anglophone appelle « double track enforcement systems » présuppose par son essence même la coordination et coopération entre autorités administratives, d’une part, et autorités policières et judiciaires, d’autre part.2 La question s’avère d’autant plus complexe que l’éventail de modèles existants est vaste et varié.... Read more

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