INCHOATE CRIMES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: THE PROBLEM OF HARMONISATION

Abstract

Although while harmonising European Union and national law the changes are usually made by adjusting the articles of the Special part of the criminal code, they also affect the quality of the General part of national criminal codes, including understanding the concept of crime stages. In recent decades, the increasing number of inchoate offenses in the special parts of EU member states’ criminal codes has affected the overall integrity of national criminal law systems. Notably, while some European Union countries establish criminal responsibility not only for attempt, but also for the preparation to commit a criminal act in their general parts of criminal codes, the practice shows that when implementing European Union legislation, they tend to criminalise these preliminary actions as independent offences.

In response to these tendencies, this research aims to determine, mainly using the methods of systematic, linguistic, and scientific literature analysis, whether European Union criminal law provides a clear and unambiguous requirement for Member States to criminalise inchoate actions as an independent criminal offence. The study demonstrates that the distinction between the stages of a crime is of great importance in criminal law, as it reflects the formation of a person's intention, the degree of dangerous behaviour and the corresponding relationship with the harm. Ultimately, the article also concludes that the regulation of EU law does not reveal an unequivocal conclusion as to whether actions that are essentially an unfinished criminal act must be criminalized as an independent crime, therefore further clarification is necessary.