Professor Gavin Barrett:

I think you will find that there is a great deal of commonality between the responses of the various member states' parliaments in terms of the objections they had. That facilitated the Commission's response by way of a communication. I suspect that the Commission would say that there is already a degree of shared competence in this regard because, they would say, the enforcement of the EPPO proposal will be done via the various national systems, for instance delegated public prosecutors in the various member states. Review of the validity of the actions of the EPPO will also be carried out by the national courts and so on. I suspect that will be the Commission's argument. Perhaps, though, there is room for negotiation on whether more shared competence could be fostered.