Criminal process and limitation period’s provisions in the EU jurisprudence framework. Dialogue between systems or identity conflict?

The interaction between European sources and national provisions have increased the level of uncertainty with regard to the nature of time limitation in criminal law in the Italian system. With decision no. 24/2017 the Italian Constitutional Court showed the intent to start a dialogue with the European Court of Justice, after the well-known 2015 Taricco decision. However, in referring the case to the ECJ for a preliminary ruling, Italian Court threatened to make use of the “counterlimits” doctrine. It emerged therefore how difficult the cohabitation is between EU law and Italian criminal law. With decision no. 24/2017 the problems raised by Taricco saga were just postponed, though they are far from being resolved. It seems difficult at the current time to understand how certain sensitive features of the Italian criminal justice system, representative of its identity, such as the time limitation provisions, could be harmonised with the supranational set of rules coming from the EU law.