Status of the EPPO: An EU Judicial Actor

This article analyses the institutional role of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in the context of the European Union’s legal framework and underlines the nature of its prosecutorial and judicial authority in the Member States. Against this background, the author reflects on whether the current legal and institutional framework provides sufficient institutional safeguards to protect its independence and the independence of its prosecutors, both at the central and domestic levels. According to the author, institutional safeguards exist to protect the independence of the office as a whole, but they are not sufficient to protect the prosecutors. A significant legal vacuum exists with regard to their career progression and to disciplinary procedures involving them, but it is especially the appointment procedure that is not in line with basic rule-of-law principles, which guarantee the independence of prosecutorial and judicial bodies. Institutional safeguards are in place, however, as regards the dismissal of the European Chief Prosecutor and of the European Prosecutors, which can be decided only by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

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• Status of the EPPO: An EU Judicial Actor door D. Ceccarelli in Eucrim