EU-level action in criminal justice is essential to effectively address the transnational nature of serious organised crime. Many criminal networks operate across borders, taking advantage of differing legal systems to create “safe havens.” By aligning national laws, the EU helps to close these gaps, ensuring criminals cannot evade justice by exploiting legal discrepancies between Member States.
Moreover, if individuals can trust that their rights will be respected in any EU country where they may face investigation or trial, they are more likely to exercise their freedom to live, work, or study across borders. Harmonised rules also build mutual trust among national law enforcement and judicial authorities.
EU criminal law thus serves multiple roles: it safeguards citizens’ rights during criminal proceedings, while providing a robust framework to prevent and penalise serious offences, including environmental crimes that impact all Member States. Moreover, criminal law rules ensure that seamless cross-border cooperation exists among national police authorities, prosecutors and judges.
Milieu has delivered several in-depth legal and policy analyses on topics related to criminal justice, thereby contributing to the advancement of related policy and legislative developments.
Some examples of Milieu’s work in this field are:
The objective of the study was to provide the Commission with an assessment of the need for a common legal framework related to the protection of vulnerable adults in cross-border criminal cases within the EU. The assessment was developed with the aim of assisting the Commission in taking decisions on the adoption of policy decisions to reinforce and streamline the judicial cooperation in that area. The study focused on the existing national rules on the definition, identification and procedural rights of vulnerable adult persons in all EU Member States as provided for by the 2013 Commission Recommendation.
The study involved a review of the definitions of vulnerable adults in criminal proceedings under international, European and national legislation, research and data collection feeding into a comparative overview of existing rules and practices to safeguard the rights of vulnerable adults at national level, an analysis of the collected data to evaluate the issues arising in cross-border judicial co-operation in the absence of a binding EU instrument on the protection of vulnerable adults, and an exploration of possible solutions to address these problems at EU level.
Evidence plays a pivotal role in criminal proceedings. Although several instruments regulating cross-border investigations have been adopted at EU level, this question primarily remains a matter of national law, and there are significant differences in the way Member States regulate the gathering and admissibility of evidence, which may be an obstacle in cross-border cases. In this context, the need for increased harmonisation in the field of cross-border evidence has been raised.
The study analysed existing national rules on the collection, handling and transfer of evidence in EU Member States and current EU rules (such as those included in EIO or EPPO) and identified problems or gaps in the context of cross-border situations. The study’s results have fed into the Commission’s general assessment of the need for specific and more comprehensive EU-wide rules in this area and future preparation of possible legislative initiatives.
The study involved data collection feeding into a comparative overview of existing rules and practices at national level and a subsequent analysis of the collected data to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency and the difficulties of the current cross-border use of evidence, and elaboration of the problem definition, including drivers and consequences. Lastly, an exploration of possible solutions to address these problems at the EU level was conducted.
To develop the area of justice based on mutual recognition and mutual trust, the Commission was asked to submit proposals to strengthen the procedural rights of suspects or accused persons following the Roadmap for strengthening procedural rights of suspected or accused persons in criminal proceedings. Directive (EU) 2016/1919 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 October 2016 on legal aid for suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings and for requested persons in European arrest warrant proceedings is the sixth Directive adopted in this context.
To ensure the good implementation of this Directive, Milieu carried out both a completeness and a conformity check of the national transposing legislation and implementation measures in 25 Member States (Denmark, Ireland and the UK were excluded). Besides delivering these assessments and a set of summary reports, Milieu prepared an overall report on the transposition and conformity for all Member States concerned, describing main findings and listing problems in relation to completeness, conformity and implementation.