Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-18-Speech-2-065"
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"en.20000118.3.2-065"2
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"Mr President, Mrs Theato’s report on the protection of the European Union’s financial interests proposes centralising criminal proceedings by initially creating a European Public Prosecutor. This proposal is radically opposed to the spirit of the current system in which the criminal law and criminal proceedings that lie at the heart of the national legal systems must come under the sovereignty of each nation and lie within the exclusive competence of each state.
But the idea of a European Public Prosecutor, on the other hand, aims in the long term to confine the national states to a subordinate role in these matters. Moreover, this proposal is liable to set off a chain reaction of totally unforeseen reforms.
According to the Theato report, the European Public Prosecutor is needed, in particular, in order to better support the inquiries of the anti-fraud office, OLAF. At the same time, however, we see from the van Hulten report under discussion today that the European Public Prosecutor should in turn be supervised by a European Union court. In this way, a small European reform may hide a medium-sized one, and a medium-sized one may hide a large one. Not to mention that the large one may hide a gigantic one, as the very next thing we will see is a proposal for a European criminal law and then, why not a European Minister of Justice, supervised by an extension of the powers of the European Parliament?
I therefore feel we must carefully consider the balance of power that we are in danger of upsetting if we put forward this type of reform, which appears to be quite specific. In the final analysis, we feel that proposals such as the proposal for a European Public Prosecutor demonstrate an inability to conceive of a Europe in anything other than a centralised and hierarchical form, organised around a superstate. The Union for a Europe of Nations Group, on the other hand, wishes to see a polycentric Europe with nations linked in a network. And such a network could take the form of improved coordination between national public prosecution authorities, for example, and the creation, if necessary, of national teams specialising in offences involving Community finances. So the legal framework, Mr President, is already in place. It is fine, in principle. It need only be fine-tuned."@en1
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