In diesem Artikel untersucht José F. Castillo Garcia vom European Centre for Judges and Lawyers (EIPA-Antenna Luxembourg) die Folgen des umstrittenen Urteils des Europäischen Gerichtshofs vom 13. September 2005 zu Umweltvergehen. Das Gericht entschied, dass die Europäische Gemeinschaft die Mitgliedstaaten verpflichten kann, Umweltvergehen strafrechtlich zu ahnden.
This analysis casts light on the substance of the judgment, as well as on the reasoning underlying it. Besides resolving a conflict over competence between the Council and the Commission over environmental legislative initiatives, Castillo Garcia says the landmark case has offered „the opportunity to determine the boundaries between [the first and the third] pillars with respect to the harmonization of criminal law.“
By stating that „the EC […] can take measures which relate to the criminal law of the Member States which it considers necessary in order to ensure that the rules which it lays down on environmental protection are fully effective,“ the Court reiterated its strong commitment to ensuring primacy of Community law.
In other words, in order to fulfil fundamental EU objectives such as environmental protection, the Community method of legislation (involving Commission proposal, qualified majority voting and co-decision procedure with the European Parliament) should remain the rule, and framework decisions (intergovernmental, unanimous procedure) the exception.
In any case, Castillo Garcia says the ruling does not entail a blind conferral of competences on the Commission. Indeed, every legislative proposal by the Commission must undergo a strict necessity test, and „any use of measures of criminal law must be justified by the need to make the Community policy in question effective.“
In conclusion, Garcia explains the potential benefits that the proposed constitutional treaty would have brought to resolving institutional disputes of this type, since it was supposed to merge the first and third pillars into a single legally binding framework. Therefore, he sees both the Court’s judgement of 13 September 2005 and the draft constitution as crucial steps towards the establishment of a European area of freedom, security and justice.