Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-19-Speech-1-066"

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"Mr President. I believe that, in a few years time, this European Parliament part-session will be seen to have established an important precedent in the development of European Union law. In principle, the European Union has no competence in matters of criminal law, which lies with the Member States. As the rapporteur said, the two Court of Justice rulings have opened the way for a certain level of Community competence in criminal law, albeit limited. Mr Jørgensen said this is not about harmonisation, but about the approximation of laws, and in this respect I believe that Parliament, through its rapporteur Mr Nassauer, the Council and the Commission, the Slovenian Presidency and Commissioner Barrot have all helped to promote an agreement that is acceptable to all. As I said, we are talking about harmonisation and not legislative approximation. We are going to harmonise the categories of crimes, which is the principle of criminal law, and as Mr Nassauer said, with legal precision, criminal categories cannot be general or arbitrary in character. We are respecting the principle of proportionality while eliminating minimum sanctions, and we are establishing the principle that you cannot prosecute conduct if there is no sanction available for such conduct. I believe that the Commission's Declaration, especially what it said about negligence and the establishment of liability, will help us to continue making progress on this issue. For the moment, we can go no further, and I believe that we will only be able to do so if there are substantive changes to European Union law, with new constitutional rules. However, Parliament, along with the Council and the Commission, is doing everything it can to strengthen the law on the protection of the environment and the corresponding criminal regulations, in accordance with the old Council of Europe Convention, which provided for the establishment of criminal liability for breaches of environmental regulations. Thank you."@en1

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