Creating criminal law rules at the EU Level

Abstract

In this chapter, the author analyses how, over time, the European Member States have ceded national sovereignty to the European Union, where particular areas of criminal law are concerned. The progress made in the creation of a quasi-federal Europe for criminal law is the fruit of a struggle between Member States, on the one hand, seeking to retain their national sovereignty, and on the other hand, recognising the need to face reality, this being that European criminality does not stop where national physical territories end, but seeks to take advantage of the borderless Europe. That same borderless European Union requires a system to match to effectively combat criminality and maintain an area of freedom, security and justice in which the European Citizen can prosper.