On the basis of the Lisbon Treaty, the Spanish EU Council Presidency will propose to its European partners, at the next Justice and Home Affairs Council, on 22-23 April in Luxembourg, to create a European prosecutor’s office. The aim is to combat offences that undermine the Union’s financial interests and possibly, in a subsequent stage, to fight other forms of cross-border crime.

Madrid wants to take this “first step down a long road” as soon as possible, said Conde Pumpido, Spain’s inspector-general of finances, as the initial proposal was presented, on 3 March in Brussels. “The single currency needs a special institution that ensures the enforcement of penal law on fraud and speculation,” he told the press.

The Spanish government has already prepared the ground well. The conclusions of a working group, convened before the summer of 2009 by Spain’s Ministry of Justice and Treasury, are based on Article 86 of the new EU treaty, which states that “In order to combat crimes affecting the financial interests of the Union, the Council […] may establish a European public prosecutor’s office from Eurojust” (the European agency for judicial cooperation by the member states). For such an initiative to become a reality, the general rule is a unanimous vote, after approval by the European Parliament. If that fails, a group of at least nine member states may launch enhanced cooperation.

According to Pumpido, a European prosecutor would also make it possible to coordinate the work of national courts, Eurojust and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

FIVE QUESTIONS

To prepare for the Justice Council in April, the Spanish State Secretary for European Affairs, Diego López Garrido, listed the five questions that will be discussed: the structure and composition of the new body, its scope of competence, its enhanced powers of investigation, the scrutiny to be exercised by the EP and national courts, and the timetable. According to the Madrid working group, the prosecutor’s competences must include the fight against fraud, money laundering and corruption, but also fraud in public procurement, misappropriation of funds, misuse of one’s position, disclosure of secrets and counterfeiting of the euro. Madrid also notes that the European prosecutor’s office and Eurojust, based in The Hague (Netherlands), should have a single secretariat.

Fraud is estimated at €1 billion a year in the EU, said the Chair of the EP Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE), Spanish Socialist Juan Fernando López Aguilar, invited by the Spanish Council Presidency. He welcomed a “positive message” on combating speculation against the single currency, a problem that occurred with the budget crisis in Greece. The MEP takes the view that this prosecutor could subsequently act against other types of cross-border crime (financing of terrorism and drug trafficking, among others).