Acceso usuarios
Mireille Delmas-Marty
Technically‐speaking, penal law remains outside the competence of the European Communities and Union. However, mirroring other legal developments within Europe, a combination of higher Community ‘principles’ such as proportionality, non‐discrimination, free competition and loyal co‐operation, together with secondary Community law, has on the one hand, led to an unforeseen process of the harmonisation of national penal systems; with national norms either being set aside by Community law, or given extended scope in the pursuance of EC/EU goals. On the other hand, certain European interests – most notably, the need to safeguard the European Union budget – have proven strong enough to prompt the evolution of a nascent penal law of the EU; the most noteworthy development here being the drawing up of an independent European ‘corpus juris’ covering penal policy and procedure in the area of EU budget protection.
