Legal bases and compliance with Community law

The European Parliament adopted the own-initiative report drafted by Ioannis KOUKIADIS (PES, Greece) on legal bases and compliance with Community law. (Please see the document dated 21/05/03.) Parliament called for three matters for the Intergovernmental Conference: - to examine the current situation and clearly define the Community's competence in criminal matters, setting forth its scope and, where appropriate, its limits and, if the pillar structure is retained, to also determine its limits and its relationship with the Community pillar; - to establish a corpus of substantive criminal law for offences affecting the common European interest or common European policies; - to define at European level the general principles of criminal law that should govern the Member States' obligations as regards the adoption of criminal penalties, such as principles of legality, non-retroactivity of sentences, and ne bis in idem. (With reference to the latter, please see CNS/2003/0811.)�