The criminal law presents a fortress of sovereignty of modern nation states since those have been created. With the beginning and the development of the EU the idea of criminal law as the fortress of state’s sovereignty has slowly but steady began to change. Criminal law and the EU have gradually begun to grow beyond what was initially planned; however, member states strongly opposed (and still oppose) to the legislative activity of EU on the field of criminal law; that is why it took the EU almost 60 years to engage in regulating EU criminal law topics. One of the reasons for such legislative activity on this field was the protection of EU financial interests. The other reasons that led the EU to regulate certain criminal law aspects at the primary-law level - the later being done with Lisbon Treaty - were: EU’s own system of financial sources, extensive and unambiguous jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, financing and execution of EU budget, the extensive list of actions that threaten and damage EU financial interests, the EU’s and member states’ inability to successfully protect EU’s financial interests. The legal basis to regulate certain substantive criminal law questions in relation to the protection of EU interests can be found in Article 83 of TFEU (in abstracto) and in Article 325 of TFEU (in concreto). In my opinion the first EU criminal substantive law on the secondary-law level will emerge in short time. The purpose of this master thesis is to highlight the connection between criminal law, the EU and the protection of EU financial interests, which is being done by EU substantive criminal law
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