Request for a preliminary ruling from the Curtea de Apel Bucureşti (Romania) lodged on 5 April 2023 — Criminal proceedings against Ş.C.F. and H.F.I.

(Case C-219/23, Dudea) (1)

(2023/C 261/12)

Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Curtea de Apel Bucureşti

Parties to the main proceedings

Defendants: Ş.C.F. and H.F.I.

Civil party: Ministerul Investițiilor și Proiectelor Europene

Person liable under civil law: H.A. SRL

Interested party: Ministerul public — Parchetul de pe lângă Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție — Direcția Națională Anticorupție

Question referred

Must Article 325(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 2(1) of the Convention drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, on the protection of the European Communities’ financial interests, (2) read in conjunction with Article 49(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, be interpreted as precluding a piece of national legislation on the time-barring of criminal liability which results from the application, in accordance with decisions of the Curțea Constituțională (Constitutional Court, Romania), of a national standard of protection of fundamental rights with regard to the principle that offences and penalties must be defined by law and which obliges the national courts to refer, in cases pending before them, applying the lex mitior principle, to a rule pertaining to the interruption of the limitation period, as a rule of substantive criminal law, which postdates the facts of the dispute in the main proceedings and which, according to the decisions of the constitutional court, no longer provides for any interruption of the limitation period, whereas the rule in force on the date of the facts of the dispute in the main proceedings, which pre-dates those decisions, governed, in a manner that was clear, precise, foreseeable and accessible, the situations in which the limitation period could be interrupted, in relation to which the special limitation period has not expired, in so far as the application of that piece of national legislation is such as to compromise the primacy, unity and effectiveness of EU law and to prevent the imposition of effective and dissuasive penalties for offences of serious fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union? In a similar vein, must those provisions be interpreted as requiring the national courts to disapply, in criminal proceedings concerning such offences, that piece of national legislation if the application thereof would have the effects referred to above and to apply, as regards the interruption of the limitation period, a rule having the clear, precise, foreseeable and accessible content of the rule in force on the date of the facts which prevents those effects from materialising?

(1)  The name of the present case is a fictitious name. It does not correspond to the real name of any party to the proceedings.

(2)  OJ 1995 C 316, p. 49.