Supranational delineation of criminal repression: ideological developmental axes of EU criminal law

The paper intends to highlight the main ideological pillars of the work in progress in EU criminal repression, as expressed in: (a) the founding treaties, (b) their promotion via EU-introduced criminal law, and (c) the case-law produced by the ECJ in its competence to interpret EU criminal law throughout its implementation. To serve this purpose, the presentation focuses on two key fields of EU interventions: penalizing fraud against the Union’s financial interests and terrorism. The research confirms both the supremacy of an EU ideology of aggressive self-protection by means of criminal law, which promotes a purely economistic policy without limits outlined by the rule of law, and an ideology of security endorsing a contemporary pre-preemptive criminal law which leads to the penalizing of thought and mass-monitors EU citizens. ECJ's reactions against this endeavor are sometimes detectable, albeit not a solid given. However, an essential monitoring of the Union law's punitive ideological deviations requires support from both member states and their judiciaries.The paper intends to highlight the main ideological pillars of the work in progress in EU criminal repression, as expressed in: (a) the founding treaties, (b) their promotion via EU-introduced criminal law, and (c) the case-law produced by the ECJ in its competence to interpret EU criminal law throughout its implementation. To serve this purpose, the presentation focuses on two key fields of EU interventions: penalizing fraud against the Union’s financial interests and terrorism. The research confirms both the supremacy of an EU ideology of aggressive self-protection by means of criminal law, which promotes a purely economistic policy without limits outlined by the rule of law, and an ideology of security endorsing a contemporary pre-preemptive criminal law which leads to the penalizing of thought and mass-monitors EU citizens. ECJ's reactions against this endeavor are sometimes detectable, albeit not a solid given. However, an essential monitoring of the Union law's punitive ideological deviations requires support from both member states and their judiciaries