EU laws could be enforced by prison

EUROPEAN commissioners yesterday hailed a landmark legal judgment that could give them the power to use criminal sanctions to enforce EU law.

José Manuel Barroso, the commission president, claimed that the European Court of Justice had made a “watershed decision” that would lead to “more democratic and more efficient lawmaking at EU level”.

Eurosceptics said the decision showed that national governments were losing power to determine their own laws.

But Foreign Office sources said that, although the judgment raised the possibility of Britain having to create new criminal offences against the wishes of the Government, in practice EU member states would never agree to such a loss of sovereignty.

The ECJ decision is hugely sensitive because until now the EU has only been able to use the criminal law to enforce its decisions in certain categories where all member states agree legislation by unanimity. In theory, qualified majority voting – which allows EU law to be made against the wishes of a minority of member states – could now be used to take decisions that would have to be enforced throughout the EU by fi nes or imprisonment.

The ECJ issued its ruling following a power struggle between the commission, the EU’s unelected bureaucracy, and member states.

Two years ago, member states created a new law on environmental pollution, involving minimum EUwide penalties for serious offenders, using the unanimity decisionmaking procedures set out in the so-called “third pillar” of the EU’s treaty provisions.

But the commission took the member states to court because they believed criminal sanctions should be available to enforce laws.

Yesterday, the commission claimed that the court decision set an “important precedent” because it would allow “the commission to continue to enhance its efforts to ensure compliance with the provisions of European Community law also by means of criminal law”.

The internal market, environmental REUTERS protection, data protection, protection of intellectual property and monetary matters were all named by the commission as areas where EU law could be backed up by criminal sanctions.

Liam Fox, the Tory foreign affairs spokesman, claimed the decision could be deeply damaging to British national interests.

“Despite all Tony Blair’s protestations, we in the UK are bit by bit losing control of our own ability to make our own laws,” he said. andrew.sparrow@ telegraph.co. uk factfile: telegraph.co. uk/ eu