La direttiva 2017/1371 e l'armonizzazione della prescrizione nei reati di frode fiscale: una possibile soluzione al conflitto tra Corti sorto dalla vicenda Taricco

Abstract

espanolDirective 2017/1371 – European criminal law – harmonization of limitation periods – Taricco – legal certainty – Art. 325 TFEU EnglishThis Insight focuses on a – apparently overlooked – passage of the decision M.A.S and M.B. (judgment of 5 December 2017, case C-42/17 [GC], or Taricco II), referring to the Directive 2017/1371. The Court of Justice seemingly assumes that the Directive imposes to the Member States to consider criminal limitations as having procedural nature. In the view of the Author, this interpretation is at variance with the text of the Directive and inconsistent with its broad logic. Nonetheless, a more thoroughly consideration of the Directive could have permitted to avoid a dramatic conflict between the Court of Justice and the Italian Constitutional Court, which ultimately led the latter Court to set aside the ruling of the former in Taricco (judgment of 8 September 2015, case C-105/14, Taricco et al. [GC]).