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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 +
