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On 17 April 2018, the Commission proposed another piece of legislation that supplements the current anti-money laundering legal framework. By means of a Directive, the Commission wishes to introduce uniform EU-wide rules, so that designated law enforcement authorities of the Member States can directly access centralized national bank account registries or data retrieval systems.

In February 2018, the director of a Hungarian company was convicted at first instance to three and a half years of imprisonment because he was held responsible for having managed a fraud scheme against EU funds. The case was originally investigated by OLAF; together with a so-called judicial recommendation, its findings were submitted to the Hungarian authorities in 2017. An indictment was filed in 2017.

On 17 April 2018, the Commission proposed a series of measures, aimed at curbing security threats in the EU, under the overall title “Denying terrorists the means and space to act”.

On 9 May 2018, Europe Day, the European Commission launched an online public consultation on the future of Europe. The consultation includes 12 questions for all European citizens to utter their views on the direction the EU should take in the future. The online survey was prepared by a so-called “Citizens’ Panel” of 96 Europeans, which convened on 5-6 May 2018. The questions also include “justice” topics, such as security and migration.

On 10 April 2018, the CJEU delivered a long-awaited judgment in a delicate legal question: whether the Union’s prohibition of discrimination on grounds of nationality (Art. 18 TFEU) affects national provisions that only ban the extradition of one’s Member States own nationals to third countries. In the affirmative, these national bans need to be extended to all Union citizens.

Following the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court blaming the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg for not having sufficiently taken into account a person’s right to a lawful judge, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg lodged a reference for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU.

On 27 March 2018, the Higher Regional Court of Bremen/Germany, submitted a request to the CJEU seeking clarification of the CJEU’s case law on detention conditions as set out in the Aranyosi/Căldăraru case.

The surrender of Carles Puigdemont, who promoted the independence of Catalonia from Spain, became a matter for German authorities. On 25 March 2018, while returning to Belgium from a trip to Finland, Puigdemont was apprehended north of Germany, near the border to Denmark.

On 23 Mai 2018, the European Commission tabled a proposal to amend Regulation (EU, Euratom) 883/2013 concerning investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

The first preliminary ruling procedure on substantial matters of the Directive is currently pending at the CJEU. A Bulgarian court lodged the reference in May 2017.