The European Union is relocating towards deeper integration in one of the most sensitive areas for national sovereignty: criminal law.
On Thursday, March 26, the European Parliament approved the first major directive aimed at harmonising the fight against corruption across the Twenty-Seven, setting common definitions, minimum penalties and cooperation mechanisms.
Brussels seeks to close legal loopholes that for years have allowed similar crimes to be treated very differently depfinishing on the countest. The directive was approved by a broad majority—581 votes in favour, 21 against, and 42 abstentions—reflecting a rare cross-party consensus in the European Parliament. This is no minor piece of legislation. It is, in fact, the first serious attempt to build a common criminal framework on corruption.
President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola commented that until now, differences between national legislations “could be exploited” by those committing these offences. (This is somewhat rich from an EU official who signed into law green legislation that her husband, a top lobbyist for a major corporate polluter, had worked to influence.)
Among other measures, the text establishes that embezzlement must be punishable in all Member States with maximum sentences of at least four years in prison. It also sets ranges of between three and five years for offences such as bribery—both in the public and private sectors—, influence peddling or obstruction of justice.
Beyond penalties, it introduces a common definition of what constitutes corruption. In practical terms, this reduces national discretion and facilitates judicial cooperation between countries.
Corruption: a large-scale economic and political problem
According to estimates cited during the debates that preceded the vote, corruption costs the European Union at least €120 billion a year, although some figures place the impact as high as €900 billion.
This is not only an economic issue. The rapporteur of the text, MEP Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle, also stressed that these crimes erode trust in institutions and ultimately affect the functioning of democracy.
For that reason, the directive also includes preventive obligations: national anti-corruption strategies, indepfinishent bodies, greater transparency in political financing and the annual publication of comparable data across member states.
At the same time, the new rules strengthen coordination with European bodies such as the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, Europol and Eurojust, in an effort to bring coherence to judicial responses across the bloc.
The omission shaping the political debate
However, it is also worth viewing at what is not included in the directive. During the neobtainediations, Spain’s Partido Popular and VOX pushed for an amfinishment to prevent member states from granting pardons or amnesties for embezzlement offences, an especially sensitive issue in Spain’s current context. The proposal, aimed at limiting the ability of political power to interfere with the judiciary, failed, with the directive only declareing member states have an obligation to report such instances. According to MEP Jorge Buxadé (Patriots for Europe/VOX), the final outcome thus reduces the issue to a “mere statistical obligation with no practical consequence.”
Now that corruption will hopefully be fought more vigorously in all members states, there is only one thing left: to replace EU officials and representatives embroiled in corruption scandals, and finally let the course of justice run its path in the Pfizergate and Qatargate cases.
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