eurealist.co.uk

A senior European Union official called on the Government yesterday to set aside its objections to the creation of a pan-European super prosecutor.

Franz-Hermann Brüner, director general of the European Anti-Fraud Office, cast doubt on the Government’s pledges that Britain could block the creation of the post.

He said preparatory work on establishing the office of European public prosecutor - who would outrank national prosecutors on crimes involving EU funds - was already under way.

Speaking at a seminar at the European Parliament in Brussels, Mr Brüner, a German former judge, hailed the EU constitution for “removing the walls” currently enforcing a strict separation between the union and national criminal justice systems.

During negotiations to draw up the treaty establishing a constitution, Britain tried in vain to block any mention of a pan-European public prosecutor, arguing that the task was best left to national prosecution services.

Finding themselves outnumbered, British negotiators surrendered that “red line”, in exchange for a guarantee that a European prosecutor could come into existence only if all 25 EU nations agreed - a so-called “unanimity lock”.

British officials insisted yesterday that their “unanimity lock” was enough to block the creation of a pan-European prosecutor. But Mr Brüner said: “Hopefully we will have a constitution in 2007-2008, and that will be the legal basis [for such a
prosecutor]. In the meantime, we will continue with the preparatory work.”

So we have a situation where the British Governments objection after being ignored at the Convention, which then struck a deal that we would have a veto on the post of an EU prosecutor, apparently the Constitution is going to be used to force the issue, not withstanding the British objections and the veto they are moving ahead with preparatory work.

This says much for the Red Lines on which Tony Blair bases his arguments that the government is still in control. While the EU legal experts expressed less confidence about Britain’s “unanimity lock”, with one noting that in Brussels, voting rules can change, and have done so in the past.

It would seem that even if they do not change this will not matter, we will get the EU prosecutor no matter what because the ECJ will then decide.

The Government strongly opposed this. At the convention Peter Hain wrote several amendments to this demand but they were all ignored by GISCARD D’ESTAING.

Hain said at the time “We are firmly opposed to establishing a European Public Prosecutor. Unanimity does not mean that this article can be accepted….There is clearly no need for a separate prosecution body at EU level.” In a separate amendment he argued that, “Proposals for a European Public Prosecutor have never satisfactorily addressed a series of objections.

First, any body which would have the power to bring prosecutions in a Member State must in some way be accountable within that Member State.

Secondly, the powers which would be vested in a European Public Prosecutor’s Office are not compatible with respect for the diversity of legal systems, a principle set out in Article.

So the question needs to be asked what is the point of negotiating an agreement when even before the Constitution is ratified the EU is ignoring the fact that it has no authority to proceed with the Prosecutor, ignoring the fact that Britain has a clear veto and intends to use it, and instead is relying on the powers in the Constitution to force Britain to concede the issue. What faith can we the British people have in any of the vetoes and so called red lines, when there seem to be no power of force or inclination to stand on the agreements made.