The new European Commission will face a drastic reform of the Euroorder to prevent “mockery” like Puigdemont’s

The new European Commission which should be named after the results of the next elections on June 9 – and whose presidency will most likely be conservative – must face a decisive challenge so that the legal figure of the Euroorder and its application cease to be a de facto ‘strain’ in which each country decides arbitrarily how to apply it or how to leave it on hold for the delivery of criminals between countries.

What happened years ago with Belgiumrefusing to recognize the equation of sedition with an equivalent crime in that country, or the doubts expressed by a federal court of Germany in the same sense, with respect to Carles Puigdemont already several of the independence leaders who fled from Spanish Justicehas shown that, in the long run, the Euroorder has become a political instrument of partial and opportunistic applicationand not in the legal tool of trust and loyalty sufficient between countries to be able to expedite the handover of criminals between Member States.

Recently, the European Parliament, which is now being dissolved, approved a report prepared by the European People’s Group, of which the PP MEP Javier Zarzalejos, whose substantive debate is pending for the new European Parliament that is formed as of June 9. Specifically, the transformation of the framework decision approved during the Government stage of José María Aznar in a regulation that is mandatory for all countries. The difference between a framework decision and a regulation is not trivial. This second legal figure is much more than a technicality because it has a much higher normative value, and because there is no room for ‘interpretations’ of a political nature – such as those used by Belgium to protect Puigdemont – and because it does not give rise to regulatory developments in each country that end up denature the euroorder.

One of the essential arguments that have moved the PP and the European Popular Group to promote this reform is “mockery and distortion” What has involved the interpretation of the Belgian courts regarding the euro order processed at the time by the magistrate Pablo Llarena within the framework of ‘procés’and in particular the Court of Flanders. For this reason, beyond suggesting that the original framework decision acquire more legal relevance as a regulation, the European PP has proposed extensively expanding the criminal categories without leaving room to interpret the principle of ‘double criminality’. There would thus be no need for the competent court of an EU country to strictly verify whether the crime for which another country claims an offender is regulated in its own country in an identical manner. This has been until now the ‘cat flap’ why countries like Belgium or Germany avoid completing Euroorders such as those linked to the separatist process in Spain.

Furthermore, the European Parliament approved that among the range of criminal conduct that must be assumed by all countries to apply immediate and automatic deliveries is that of crimes “against the constitutional integrity of the States” because it is precisely a protected good. by EU members. That is why Zarzalejos considers a “farce” that “hoax that the socialist Government modified the crime of sedition because it had to be homogenized with Europe”.

Finally, the intention is that the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union to require countries to be strict in compliance with the double principle of mutual trust and legal loyalty between member countries so as not to delay or hinder the surrender of criminals. “When some countries doubt others,” Zarzalejos argues, “reciprocal trust fails and judicial collaboration suffers. Who is the only one who benefits? The criminal, who is privileged in a legal swarm that makes justice lose all its effectiveness.”

He text, since it was approved by the European Parliament by a large majority, is in force. But it has not yet acquired legal effectiveness because in reality the European Parliament does not have legislative power. It is the European Commission that has to sign it and turn it into legislative project.