Brussels, 31/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Thursday the European Parliament adopted the report by Diemut Theato (CDU) by 266 to 99 with 15 abstentions. The report “supports the idea of establishing a European Public Prosecutor”, an idea taken up by Commissioner Michaele Schreyer in the Green Paper on the judicial protection of the EU's financial interests (see EUROPE of 12 December 2001). The EP highlights the need for democratic control by the European Parliament over the Prosecutor's powers and believes the Prosecutor should be appointed by Parliament, endorsed by the Council, from a list of at least two candidates put forward by the European Commission. The EP also calls for the European Public Prosecutor to keep Parliament informed of his or her work, changes in criminal behaviour and progress in cooperating with national prosecutors, in order to act effectively and transparently. The Prosecutor would provide the EP with reports which would include a proposed budget.
The EP is already asking the European Convention, and “plans to ask the Intergovernmental Conference at the appropriate time” for the upcoming institutional reform to include the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor. It calls on Member States and candidate countries to discuss in detail in their domestic political and legal bodies the importance of combatting cross-border crime. The EP acknowledges it is important not to postpone this amendment to the Treaty beyond the upcoming IGC since it is unlikely there will be any other amendments to the Treaty in the immediate future. It asserts that it would be a good idea to ensure the protection of the EU's financial interests in the enlarged European Union but stresses that this must not become an obstacle to successful enlargement in 2004.
While approving the idea of establishing a European Public Prosecutor and greater cooperation between national judicial authorities in a European Area of Security and Justice, the EP says that various tangible issues have to be settled, partly within the framework of derived law, such as disparity between legal systems and practice; language and administrative practices; the impact on national penal law; the risk of duplicating investigations and conflicts of competence between national prosecutors and the European Public Prosecutor; the acceptability of proof; and mutual recognition. It has therefore made the following comments: the European Public Prosecutor and his/her deputies must work together with Member States' prosecutors to strengthen their investigations and resolve practical issues connected with the Member States' legal systems; the European Public Prosecutor must not be endowed with the discretion to halt investigations - such a decision should be submitted to legal control; detailed criteria should be set down with regard to the Member State that will give judgement to avoid “court shopping”; and the EP calls on the Commission to consider the case of illegal instructions by the European Public Prosecutor and potential judicial recourse. In terms of scope of competence, it believes the system set up should initially be tested in the domain of financial interests, but believes this will largely depend on the proposals of the European Convention and the IGC decisions concerning the Communitarising of instruments under the third pillar.
The EP is calling on the Commission to set out in greater detail in its proposal the relations between the European Public Prosecutor and existing structures: it calls on the European Convention to clearly define the relationship between the European Public Prosecutor and Eurojust by setting out their respective powers and responsibilities (it believes that in the future the imperative of effective penal proceedings will mean duplicate structures cannot be permitted); it acknowledges that the tasks of the European Public Prosecutor may be assumed by a strengthened Eurojust as long as Eurojust is transferred to the first pillar and the protection of the EU's financial interests is given serious and specific importance; it believes that Olaf is at present the centre of the EU's anti-fraud system but Olaf should be “improved” in order to provide the necessary legal guarantees for the legitimacy that it lacks; the EP believes Olaf should assist the European Public Prosecutor both in terms of transmitting information and in terms of investigations and research.
The European Parliament believes that it is would be a good idea to foresee a system of penal law and proceedings guaranteeing the protection of the fundamental rights of the persons concerned under the Charter of Fundamental Rights under the control of the European courts; it is essential judicially for crimes damaging the EU's financial interests to be defined in the greatest possible detail; and it is essential that the components of infringement of law be made uniform (it notes in this connection that the Council has not yet unveiled a common position on the draft directive of 23 May 2001 concerning the penal protection of the Community's financial interests). It also notes that the European Convention on the protection of the Community's financial interests has finally come into force, having been ratified by all Member States, and the EP calls on Member States to “respect the commitments they made under the Convention and ratify the supplementary protocols”.