Case C-587/24, VOX and Others: Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Cataluña (Spain) lodged on 10 September 2024 – Ministerio Fiscal, Administración General del Estado, Partido político VOX v NQ, DL, MU
Date: 2024-09-10
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: Catalonia, autonomous movement, barring of penalties by limitation, breach of trust, fight against crime, fraud, fraud against the EU, impunity, public financing, territorial law








C_202500882EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/882


17.2.2025






Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Cataluña (Spain) lodged on 10 September 2024 – Ministerio Fiscal, Administración General del Estado, Partido político VOX v NQ, DL, MU


(Case C-587/24, VOX and Others)

(C/2025/882)
Language of the case: Spanish

Referring court

Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Cataluña

Parties to the main proceedings


Prosecuting parties: Ministerio Fiscal, Administración General del Estado and Partido político VOX

Defendants: NQ, DL, MU

Questions referred







1.


Does legislation of a Member State of the European Union, such as Spanish Ley Orgánica 1/2024 (Organic Law 1/2024), (1) which, in granting an amnesty in respect of a number of offences of misappropriation of national public funds, leaves the financial interests of that Member State unprotected, automatically also place the European Union’s financial interests at risk, for the purposes of Article 325 TFEU, and is it, therefore, contrary to Article 4(3) of Directive 2017/1371? (2)











2.


Can the misappropriation of own public funds from the budget of an autonomous region of a Member State, in an attempt, declared illegal, to achieve the independence of that region and its secession from the State of which it forms part, be considered to damage the European Union’s financial interests, within the meaning of Article 2(1) of Directive 2017/1371, in view of the high level of risk to which, in the case in hand, the territorial integrity of the European Union and, consequently, that of its annual budgets were exposed?










3.


If the European Union’s financial interests are not considered to have been damaged by the misappropriation of regional funds in order to use them to achieve the secession of part of the territory of a State: is an amnesty law, such as Organic Law 1/2024, which absolves from all responsibility those who were entrusted with the management of public funds and used those funds for activities that were declared unlawful, compatible with Article 325 TFEU in so far as that article requires Member States to adopt effective deterrent measures capable of providing effective protection to counter fraud and any illegal activity affecting the financial interests of the European Union, in view of the context and circumstances in which the amnesty law was adopted, as a result of the creation of a systemic risk of future impunity in situations similar to that in which Organic Law 1/2024 was adopted?






(1)  Ley Orgánica 1/2024, de 10 de junio, de amnistía para la normalización institucional, política y social en Cataluña (Organic Law No 1/2024 of 10 June 2024 on amnesty for institutional, political and social normalisation in Catalonia).

(2)  Directive (EU) 2017/1371 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 July 2017 on the fight against fraud to the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law (OJ 2017 L 198, p. 29).


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/882/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)