Recent Developments in the Area of European Criminal Law

Abstract

This contribution tries to highlight and scrutinize recent developments in the dynamic area of European criminal law at both the EC and EU level. In so doing the paper focuses on three judgments each providing new perspectives on, in particular, but not only, how far the Court of Justice is prepared to go in its role as integration activist; by identifying the principle of effectiveness as forming the leitmotif in the chase for constitutional evolution of European criminal law. The paper concludes, after also having discussed current legislative initiatives presented by the Commission, by asserting the need for caution and critical assessment.

Development and critics of effectiveness principle in EU international private law

“…Consider the cases in which the Union is also endowed with executive powers, as is the case of competition. Even in such situations, the coercive power that may be necessary for implementation lies with the member states, which only have an apparatus that can operate in relation to natural or legal persons (HERLIN-KARNELL, 2007;DANOV;BECKER;BEAUMONT, 2013).…”

“…There may be orders which, with an excessively short limitation period, risk compromising the effectiveness of the whole system of private enforcement of the Union by depriving the injured party of the possibility of concrete protection while, conversely, other legal systems may be applicable. Precisely in order to reconcile these opposing needs and different settings adopted in various national legal systems EC in the White Paper on the anti-trust actions of the EC antitrust rules of 2 April 2008 (IOANNIDOU, 2015;FLETCHER;HERLIN-KARNELL;MATERA, 2016) has highlighted that the relative solution cannot be left to the discipline of various national laws in inter alia conflicts with both the principle of effectiveness and legal certainty, creating a non-uniform treatment to the private enforcement of the Union. It has thus been proposed that it is infringement that detects the purposes of limitation with the clarification that in case of continuous or repeated infringement the limitation period of 5 years begins to run only after the infringement has ceased and in any case the prescription period does not begin when the injured party has not been able to reasonably consider the infraction and the prejudice that has been caused to him.…”