Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-27-Speech-4-037"
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"en.20030327.2.4-037"2
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Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen. Mrs Theato, I am sorry I was not able to be here when you made your speech. I had a trialogue here in the House that has only just finished. Fighting European budget fraud is and remains one of the Commission’s most important concerns. We know that we can count on Parliament unreservedly in this, since it has taken and is taking many initiatives in this field. We all know that the only appropriate and effective way of tackling crimes against Community finance is for there to be consistent criminal prosecution. That is why, in 2000, the Commission proposed including a provision for establishing the office of a European Public Prosecutor in the EC Treaty. At the time, the Council decided not to do so.
The Commission will comply with the request of the Committee on Budgetary Control and look at these questions in detail in the course of this year. In so doing it will be guided by the proposals made by the Convention and in particular also by the work in the field of justice and internal affairs. The important thing now, however, is that a European criminal prosecution authority should be anchored in the Constitutional Treaty itself with a basis in law for developing the secondary law that will then be necessary. That is the only way of dealing effectively on the criminal law side with the current difficulties in fighting fraud and corruption that are such a drain on the Community budget. If we want to help to make the building of Europe more popular with the citizens and taxpayers, we must send an effective signal with the future Treaty.
It was in December 2001 that the Commission presented the Green Paper on the criminal-law protection of financial interests and the establishment of a European Prosecutor, which is being discussed today and is the subject of the report. On the basis of that Green Paper, the Commission initiated a discussion process in 2002. The European Parliament, and in particular the Chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, has made an important contribution to that debate and also given it impetus. Mrs Theato, everyone here knows that we really would not have made the progress that we have with the project for a European Prosecutor without your active support and your commitment. I would particularly like to thank you for that on the Commission’s behalf.
Last week, the Commission presented a follow-up report to the Green Paper, summarising the outcome of the public consultation. Most people who took part in the debate and in the consultation process have a basically positive attitude towards a European Public Prosecutor. As we all know, the governments had more reservations about it than the members of the legal professions and of the non-governmental organisations, and in particular than people who have to deal with the question every day. But only a minority are totally against the project. Over all, however, openness to the project of a European Public Prosecutor has grown appreciably as the year has gone by.
The Commission therefore reaffirms its proposal for the establishment of a Public Prosecutor. This outcome is all the more important now that the Convention – as someone has already said – has entered its crucial phase. Specific proposals for a constitution are now being discussed. Last week the Convention Presidium proposed including an Article 20 about the European Public Prosecutor’s office in the ‘Justice and Internal Affairs’ Title, and the Plenum of the Convention will give its opinion on that next week. In this crucial phase it really is essential that Parliament and the Commission should be pulling in the same direction and sending the Convention a clear message.
It is already a cause for some satisfaction that our common concern has nevertheless come far enough for the European Public Prosecutor’s office to have been given an article of its own in the draft treaty. The debate has done much to bring this about and it is very much to your credit. However, the Commission takes the view that the Presidium’s proposal does not go far enough. It stops short of the actual objective. What is proposed is a clause empowering the Council to create the office of European Public Prosecutor unanimously at some time in the future. With an empowerment clause of that nature, the European Prosecutor may well turn out to be an empty promise in an enlarged Union of 25 or more Member States. That is the risk. We must therefore anchor the office of the European Prosecutor in the Treaty itself, otherwise it is to be feared that the project really will be postponed indefinitely.
I am glad that Parliament and the Commission are in full and complete agreement on this eminently important and highly political question. I hope that a large number of amendments will be tabled for the Convention’s plenary session on 3 and 4 April with the aim of creating a European Public Prosecutor in the Treaty itself. The Commission therefore welcomes the European Parliament’s support, which is expressed very, very clearly in Mrs Theato’s report. I congratulate you warmly on this report, knowing how much personal commitment lies behind it.
In the Convention’s decision-making phase that now lies before us, it is of the utmost importance that Parliament gives a clear sign. The Commission agrees with the essentials of Mrs Theato’s report on the Green Paper, as I have said. But we do not agree entirely on every point. We are, for example, still debating whether there is a need for a Preliminary Chamber, whether national court control of the Public Prosecutor’s decisions is sufficient or not and whether it can be transferred.
So far as Eurojust is concerned, the Commission also considers it desirable that the European Public Prosecutor’s office should be close to this institution. We have said more about this in our
report. There are still doubts about whether this can be achieved effectively by means of a strengthened Eurojust taking on the tasks of the Public Prosecutor’s office. This is being discussed. Both functions – the central criminal prosecution of crimes against the Union’s financial interests and the coordination of national criminal prosecution authorities in other areas of crime – could be brought together in a common structure, under the same roof so to speak. Transferring Eurojust to the first pillar is in this respect a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. That also has to be made very clear.
The Commission also agrees with the report that some questions connected with the creation of a European Public Prosecutor’s office still need further discussion. This is true of the question of secondary law. In our
report we said we wanted to look in more detail at the following questions in particular, namely the question of evidence, so that evidence lawfully collected in one Member State can be admitted in another Member State, and the procedural guarantees for the accused, on which a special consultation is taking place on the basis of another Green Paper presented by my colleague Mr Vitorino."@en1
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