LA PROCURA EUROPEA NEL CONTESTO DEL PROCESSO DI INTEGRAZIONE IN MATERIA PENALE TRA VINCOLI NAZIONALI E SOVRANAZIONALI

The thesis deals with the issue of the creation of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), established by Council Regulation (EU) 2017/1939 of 12 October 2017, after almost two decades of studies and proposals. Traditionally, the subject has been studied in the disciplinary fields of criminal law and criminal procedure, with all the merits but also all the limits of a research that involves the adoption of a perspective of domestic law. The predilection for such an approach was essentially due to the genesis of the project that developed from a comparative study, but above all to its implications. Reasonably, in fact, the Italian and foreign doctrine was mainly concerned with its compatibility with national laws and national legal traditions. Unlike these studies, the paper examines the subject from the perspective of EU law. In fact, EPPO set-up regulation must respect the principles that base the competence of the EU in criminal matters, regulate the exercise and finally establish the scope and the intensity of EU action in this "sensitive" sector. Furthermore, the Office will place itself in the panorama of the already existing cooperation and coordination actors and bodies, having specific competences in criminal matters and active also in the field of the protection of the financial interests of the EU. From this perspective, the first chapter represents the methodological premise and the key to understanding the entire work. In this chapter the issue is framed in the context of the specificities of the process of European integration in criminal matters, with particular attention to its inspiring principles and its inherent limits. The second chapter examines the studies, proposals, documents (both institutional and non-institutional) that started the debate around the figure of a European investigating authority and which led to the introduction of an ad hoc legal basis for the establishment of the Office, inserted by the Treaty of Lisbon in the art. 86 TFEU. The chapter ends with the long and complex legislative process that led to the approval of the regulation even if with significant renunciations compared to the original aspirations. First of all, the use of enhanced cooperation. The third, fourth and fifth chapters are dedicated, respectively, to institutional profiles, material competence and, lastly, to the operational aspects related to the functioning of the Office and to relations with "partners". In this part, the provisions of the regulation text are examined by highlighting the critical and potentially problematic profiles. The work also investigates the specific implications related to the use of enhanced cooperation.