The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) – Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

This article first gives a brief historic overview of the long road to the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), starting with the first ideas at the meeting of the Presidents of the European Criminal Law Associations in 1995 and worked out in more detail in the Corpus Juris drafts in 1997 and 1999. The driving force was ultimately the instalment of a legal basis in the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, which paved the way for the 2013 Commission legislative proposal and the final Council decision on the Regulation establishing the EPPO by means of enhanced cooperation in 2017. The article also argues that objections to the established scheme – especially those raised by the non-participating countries and national parliaments during negotiation of the Commission proposal – should not be ignored. These objections mainly refer to infringements of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. According to the author, the arguments against subsidiarity are unfounded; however, the question remains as to whether the proportionality principle has been upheld, considering the limitation of the EPPO to prosecute PIF offences only. In order to reconcile with proportionality, the author advocates extending the EPPO’s competence to environmental crime. He draws several parallels to the situation involving PIF and calls on politicians, civil society organisations, and legal experts to think about the inclusion of crimes against the environment into EPPO’s portfolio.