European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EUC Report) — House of Lords, 2015-03-19
Topic: Law and Crime
Jean Ann Corston (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, it was my pleasure to serve as both a member and the chair of the Sub-Committee on Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection. At the outset I thank my colleagues who served as members of that committee, who all brought extraordinary expertise and diligence to their work, and pay tribute to our staff. We were very fortunate in the clerks who served when I was on the committee and in our legal advisers, who were second to none. Having served for 13 years as a Member of another place, I think I can say without contradiction that the scrutiny role of the House of Lords in its European work is second to none and is recognised as such throughout the European Union On 17 July 2013, the European Commission published its long-awaited proposal for a European public prosecutor’s office. It is subject to the UK’s opt-in protocol, but the coalition agreement had already ruled out participation by the United Kingdom. I interject a personal note here. It seems to me to be quite a discourtesy in parliamentary terms to start a consultation process on 17 July in any year as Parliament has either risen for the Summer Recess or is about to do so. In order for us to do our scrutiny work properly, not only did it involve holiday time for staff, it meant that the committee had to come back when the House was not sitting to be able to fulfil its role. I hope that the European Commission will not persist with that kind of timetable in future Under the Commission’s proposal, the prosecutor would be made, "responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to judgment … the perpetrators of … offences against the Union’s financial interest", and would be empowered to, "exercise the functions of prosecutor in the competent courts of the Member States" This organisation was going to be responsible for all fraud in the European Union. At its meeting on 11 September 2013, the Sub-Committee on Justice, Institutions and Consumer Protection, which at the time I chaired, considered the Commission’s proposal for the first time and decided to issue a reasoned opinion, challenging it on the grounds of subsidiarity. In October of the same year, this House approved the sub-committee’s proposed reasoned opinion and because the number of reasoned opinions submitted by the national parliaments reached the "yellow card" threshold, the Commission was obliged to review the proposal. It is important to point out that this was only the second time that sufficient national parliaments had ever forced the Commission to undertake such a review We were consequently very disappointed when shortly thereafter, in November, following its review, the Commission produced a communication in which it decided to maintain its proposed European prosecutor as originally brought forward. There was not much in the way of a reasoned argument. Following this news, in January 2014, the sub-committee agreed to launch an inquiry into the ramifications of the proposed European public prosecutor’s office for non-participating states such as the United Kingdom—but of course, the United Kingdom is not the only one. While we had our doubts about the proposal, we were also very concerned about the impact it would have on the non-participating member states, of which the UK is one, and on the ongoing relationship with the European Union’s current anti-fraud body, OLAF, and Eurojust We began taking evidence in March 2014. We heard from leading academics in the field, representatives of the legal profession, the current president of Eurojust and one former holder of that position, and the current director-general of OLAF. The sessions concluded with evidence from the Home Secretary. We are grateful to all those who submitted evidence to our inquiry. Unfortunately, the committee’s planned timetable was somewhat frustrated in that while the evidence sessions were well under way, following the member states’ initial discussion of the Commission’s proposal, the then Greek presidency of the Council brought forward an alternative prosecutor’s proposal, addressing some of the member states’ key concerns. The Government submitted an Explanatory Memorandum on this alternative text in June 2014 We took the decision to postpone publication to allow all those who gave evidence to the inquiry an opportunity to consider the rival text. The committee’s subsequent report was published on 3 November 2014. My committee found a number of very significant problems with the Commission’s proposal. We were worried about the principle that the prosecutor would be responsible for investigating and prosecuting all EU fraud crimes, to the exclusion of the national bodies responsible—what is referred to in the jargon as exclusive competence. This in turn would run the risk of the prosecutor being overwhelmed from birth by an excessive workload. We also expressed doubts about the proposed centralised structure Unfortunately, we did not see the presidency’s text as a panacea. The committee found that the rival text raised more questions than answers. There was a lack of clarity about sharing competence for these crimes between the member states and the relevant national authorities. We also thought that the attempt to mimic Eurojust’s collegiate structure was overly complicated. As for the position of the non-participating member states, neither of the texts considered during the inquiry addressed their position at all. However, the report warned that the proposed European prosecutor could seriously undermine the UK’s relationship with the European Union’s current anti-fraud body, OLAF, and with Eurojust Unsurprisingly, given their long-standing opposition to the European public prosecutor’s office, the Government shared many of the committee’s concerns. There is a great deal of common ground between the committee and the Government and, as we know, that is not always the case.