Towards a decentralised European Public Prosecutors Office?

Extending the debate on a European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), this paper suggests that, in order to make practical progress, two questions need to be untangled: a legal and political question about the relations between Articles 85 and 86 TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union); and a question that is also of course legal and political, but also is more practically focussed, on effective use by the EEPO of national investigative and prosecution resources. Three possible implementations are discussed, including a 'half-way house' between coordination and a purely vertical, centralised model. Model 1: reinforcement of Eurojust on the basis of Article 85 TFEU (progressive increase of powers). Model 2: a decentralised EPPO, based on and within national resources, rather than being 'over' them (horizontal integration, based on Article 85 TFEU at first, but with the possibility of evolution towards a more centralised model under Article 86). Model 3: a centralised EPPO, based on Article 86 TFEU (vertical integration, as envisaged in the Corpus Juris). This article reflects on and extends a seminar held at the Institute of Advanced legal Studies on December 12, 2011. [This summary does not appear as such in the paper: Amicus Cuirae does not use abstracts.]