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The material scope of competence of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office: Lex uncerta and unpraevia?

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Abstract

Article 86 TFEU provides a clear legal basis to establish the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and to regulate its investigative and prosecutorial powers. Article 86 TFEU also refers to a limited substantive mandate, the protection of the financial interest of the Union, or to an extended mandate (based on an unanimous decision in the Council) including all serious crimes having a cross-border dimension. However, the Article remains silent on the precise scope of this material scope of competence. The 2013 Commission’s EPPO proposal does not contain specific elements of the offences or penalties and refers to the proposal for a directive on the criminal law protection of the financial interest of the EU. The result will be that the material competence of the EPPO will at the end depend upon the patchwork of implementation provisions in every single Member State. In this article is assessed if this solution can comply with the substantive legality principle in criminal matters, being a human right under the ECHR and the Charter. The author makes a plea for an alternative solution and to regulate the material competence in the EPPO regulation itself.

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Notes

  1. C. Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene, 1764, https://archive.org/details/deidelittiedelle00becc or Beccaria [3]; Krey [6].

  2. See the Final report of Working Group X “Freedom, Security and Justice”, CONV 426/02, http://european-convention.eu.int/pdf/reg/en/02/cv00/cv00426.en02.pdf, page 20: “The Group agrees on the objective of a more efficient prosecution of offences against the Union’s financial interests. A significant number of members believe that current instruments are inadequate. The Group considered some proposals made in favour of the creation of a European Public Prosecutor responsible for detecting, prosecuting and bringing to judgement in the national courts the perpetrators of crimes prejudicial to the Union’s financial interests. They have proposed that the Treaty should provide a legal basis to that effect. Others have considered that a convincing case was not made for the creation of such a body and that there were strong objections on both practical and accountability grounds. To some other Members, the need exists for a proper European Public Prosecutor’s Office with a scope of action going beyond the protection of the financial interests of the Union. They believe that the current Eurojust could evolve towards that Office.”

  3. In particular the French Conseil d’état demanded that the scope of competence of the EPPO should be enlarged to cover not only offences against the financial interests of the EU, but also other forms of serious cross border criminality. See: Conseil d’Etat, Rèflections sur l’institution d’un parquet europèen, 24 February 2011, p. 58.

  4. CONV 850/03 140.

  5. Communication from the Commission: The criminal protection of the Community’s financial interests: a European Prosecutor, COM (2000) 608 final, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2000:0608:FIN:EN:PDF; for analysis see also the EC Green Paper on criminal-law protection of the financial interests of the Community and the establishment of a European Prosecutor, COM (2001) 715 final, http://ec.europa.eu/anti_fraud/documents/fwk-green-paper-document/green_paper_en.pdf.

  6. COM (2000) 608 final, p. 8.

  7. Article 83(3) provides

    “Where a member of the Council considers that a draft directive as referred to in paragraph 1 or 2 would affect fundamental aspects of its criminal justice system, it may request that the draft directive be referred to the European Council. In that case, the ordinary legislative procedure shall be suspended. After discussion, and in case of a consensus, the European Council shall, within four months of this suspension, refer the draft back to the Council, which shall terminate the suspension of the ordinary legislative procedure”.

  8. Luchtman & Vervaele [9].

  9. For a more in detail analysis of Article 83 TFEU, see Vervaele [13].

  10. Vervaele [12].

  11. COM(2013) 534 final, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2013:0534:FIN:EN:PDF

  12. See point 4.

  13. The package contained also a regulation on administrative PIF-irregularities, regulation 2988/95 on the protection of the EC’s financial interests (OJ L 312, 23 December 1995) and the legal basis for the OLAF-regulation 2185/96 concerning on-the-spot checks and inspections carried out by the Commission in order to protect the European Communities’ financial interests against fraud and other irregularities, OJ L 292, 15 November 1996.

  14. Convention of 26 July 1995, OJ C 316, 27 November 1995; First Protocol of 27 September 1996, OJ C 313, 23 October 1996 and second Protocol of 19 June 1997, OJ C 221, 19 July 1997.

  15. COM (2004) 709 final and COM (2008) 77 final.

  16. Point 1.2 of Explanatory Memorandum to Proposal for a directive on the criminal law protection of the Community’s financial interests, COM (2001) 272 final, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2001:0272:FIN:EN:PDF. See also the two Reports of the Commission on the Implementation of the Convention on the Protection of the European Communities’ financial interests and its protocols, of 2004 (COM (2004) 709 final) and 2008 (COM (2008) 77 final).

  17. Delmas-Marty [5]; Delmas-Marty & Vervaele [4].

  18. COM (2001) 272 final.

  19. Article 280 was the predecessor of Article 325 TFEU. By using Article 280 the Commission avoided the criminal law harmonisation in the third pillar.

  20. COM (2011) 293 final.

  21. COM (2012) 363 final.

  22. The Commission has reflected on including the other offences mentioned in the Corpus Juris, namely a specific offence of abuse of office and the breach of professional secrecy. However, the Commission decided not to include a special offence on abuse of office as “it has been considered a superfluous addition to the offence of misappropriation. Similarly, an offence of breach of professional secrecy has not been included in the proposal as the conduct is already covered under the disciplinary-law measures of the EU Staff Regulations.” See Kuhl [7], p. 65.

  23. Case C-539/09 Commission v Germany [2011] ECR I-11235, §72.

  24. Point 3.3 of the explanatory memorandum of the EPPO proposal.

  25. Idem.

  26. Recital 7 of the EPPO proposal.

  27. Ainsworth [1].

  28. In the same vein of interpretation, see Picotti [10], see also on line: www.penalecontemporaneo.it.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe (RENFORCE), Utrecht Law School, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    John A. E. Vervaele

  2. College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium

    John A. E. Vervaele

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  1. John A. E. Vervaele
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Correspondence to John A. E. Vervaele.

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This article is based on a presentation made at the Conference on The European Public Prosecutor’s Office: “A Constructive Approach towards the Legal Framework”, organised by the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice in cooperation with ERA and the European Commission on 16–17 September 2013 in Vilnius.

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Vervaele, J.A.E. The material scope of competence of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office: Lex uncerta and unpraevia?. ERA Forum 15, 85–99 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12027-014-0338-z

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