Brussels is determined to harmonize definitions of corruption-related offenses across the EU. It is one of his formulas to prosecute these crimes that often do not have victims with names and surnames and that are increasingly taking place at a transnational level. Now, a new European directive that harmonizes the penalties and establishes some scales will force Spain to toughen the sentences for the crime of embezzlement, only six months after the Government of Pedro Sánchez lowered them with a reform of the Penal Code with which it intended reduce the sentence to the leaders of the process Catalan independentist.
The new European regulation —which still has to go through negotiation in the Council of the EU with the Member States and the processing in the European Parliament— defines embezzlement in the case of a public servant as “the commitment, disbursement, appropriation or use by a public official of assets whose administration is entrusted directly or indirectly against the purpose for which they were intended. Brussels does not differentiate whether the crime has been committed to achieve personal enrichment or not, as the Spanish reform does; nor does it distinguish whether it has been done for a public purpose other than the initial one, something that was also introduced in that reform of the Penal Code (to reduce the punishment for organizing the illegal independence referendum). And it establishes that the maximum sentences for those convicted of this crime cannot be less than five years in prison.
In Spain, the maximum sentence for general embezzlement for the purpose of direct profit is 12 years. However, the two new attenuated rates included in the reform last December, agreed by the Government with ERC, carry maximum penalties of three and four years in prison. If the directive goes ahead as the European Commission has proposed this Wednesday, Spain will have to retouch the Penal Code again to raise those penalties. Brussels, in any case, does not knock down the Spanish reform or force embezzlement to be put back in the same drawer when there is personal profit and when there is not, community sources indicate. But it does force the penalties to be raised again.
The change — which, once the directive is approved, can take even more than a year to be transposed into national law — will generate more political than practical uproar, since, for now, the Spanish courts are avoiding applying that new attenuated crime of embezzlement that it introduced the Government, supported by the rejection of the Supreme Court and jurisprudence. However, the Brussels directive can reopen a debate that was already controversial when the reform of the Penal Code was approved. And it does so at a particularly heated moment, less than a month before the municipal and regional elections and with the general ones scheduled for December.
The European directive establishes the definitions of a series of criminal offenses related to corruption (not only embezzlement, but also fraud or misappropriation) and scales in penalties. Spain will not be the only Member State that will have to increase its penalties for certain types of crime: others will also have to change their regulations. For example, two Member States do not have the specific type of offense of influence peddling and 17 do not have the specific type to penalize “illicit enrichment”.
What affects the most is what happens closer. To not miss anything, subscribe.
subscribe
#Brussels #force #tougher #penalties #embezzlement