Seite 195 [195]
DEVELOPING EU CRIMINAL LAW — SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON 9 MAY
€218 and €282 billion annually. In addition, organised crime and corruption have
significant social and political costs, such as infiltration of the legal economy
through the investment of laundered criminal proceeds.
Digitalisation profoundly affects the criminal justice field, acting as both a
catalyst of cross-border criminal activity and an effective tool to fight organised
crime. In recent years, the European Union has taken steps to modernise the
information systems used by law enforcement officials in the respective Member
States, to better enable cross-border cooperation in criminal cases. In particular, EU
law enforcement authorities, including Europol, eu-LISA and Frontex, are equipped
with state-of-the-art digital (ICT) tools for gathering and sharing information,
and can exchange and process operational data in a structured, encrypted, fully
automated and interoperable way. In contrast, judicial practitioners in the Member
States, as well as Eurojust and other JHA agencies, often lack appropriate tools
to tackle serious cross-border crime and enhance cooperation among involved
authorities. In particular, the lack of a structured and integrated information
system to support operational exchanges of crucial information and evidence
during cases requires practitioners to find workarounds based on cumbersome
manual procedures. At Eurojust, such limitations slow down efforts to provide the
level of service national authorities require in cross-border investigations.
Faced with the evolution of crime, globalisation, and technological innovations,
there is a clear need to adapt the Union’s acquis to the actual needs of practitioners
and citizens and thus enable appropriate responses to new developments, including
those linked to digitalisation and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). A primary
challenge is the establishment of a solid EU criminal law framework capable of
coherently tackling serious and/or cross-border crime (“euro-crimes”) and other
areas of crime in which the approximation of offences or sanctions is essential for
the enforcement of EU law (“accessory crimes”) in full respect of Member States’
legal traditions. It is important to strike the right balance between EU action and
respect for Member States’ legal traditions, in particular in the area of sanctions.
In the years to come, the Union should revisit its legislation on environmental
crimes, in particular to support the objectives of a long-term Union policy for
the protection of the environment with an appropriate set of criminal and other
sanctions. Moreover, the Union should tackle the rising phenomena of hate crime
and gender violence, in necessary by revising the legal basis in the Treaties (neither
crime category is mentioned among the cross-border crimes within the Union’s
competence but both can be serious).
Another high priority in the area of justice is to strengthen mutual trust based
on democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights, to increase fairness and
sustainability in society, and to ensure the smooth functioning of the single
market. It is now clear that further efforts are required to consolidate the system
«193 +