Latest blog articles

  • During my lunch break or in the evening, it is a pleasure to take a walk and visit the border crossing, because I want to know how our southern neighbours have cordoned off the border. The Dutch-Belgian border is about 300 meters away from me. Only recently I realised that my father once guarded...

  • The very recent ruling of the CJEU in DK (C-653/19 PPU, 28 November 2019) came to verify two quite depressing suspicions about the current status of European criminal law. First, Directive 2016/343 on the presumption of innocence remains an instrument with staggeringly limited applicability...

  • This blog is only available in Dutch.

    Als je woont of werkt in een grensregio zijn daar zowel voor- als nadelen aan verbonden. Laat ik met het belangrijkste nadeel beginnen: Voor landelijke gebeurtenissen ben je een eind weg van daar waar het meest gebeurt. Dat zijn de grote Randsteden: als je pech...

  • The approach of drugs related problems in Maastricht, with the help of a specially equipped project Frontière, based on the decrease of visible nuisance in the city over the recent years, has so far been successful. (This blog is only available in Dutch) 

  • It would have been rather uncomfortable for the Court to rule that the Italian limitation periods for serious VAT-fraud cases should be set aside, wouldn't it? Can Taricco II be, after all, just a temporary (and unstable!) bridge over the troubled waters of the EU’s financial interests, soon to be...

  • Edwin Kruisbergen obtained his doctorate on monday 9-01-17 at the VU, with a thesis entitled Combating Organised Crime; a study on undercover policing and the follow-the-money strategy. According to confiscation of illegally obtained assets Kruisbergen concluded that not even a 5th part of the total...