What does European Public Prosecutor’s Office do?
Have you ever heard on the news about funds received from the European Union to finance investments in various development areas, such as urban development or agricultural programs? Well, surely you have heard at least once about frauds regarding some purchases intended to be made from these funds.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is an independent body of the European Union responsible precisely for the investigation and prosecution of the authors of such frauds brought to the EU budget. Moreover, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office defends the financial interests of the EU also by investigating corruption, money laundering offenses or cross-border VAT fraud (over 10 million euros).
In other words, the EPPO is reffered both by the EU institutions and bodies, as well as by competent authorities from the 22 member states that have joined the EPPO or even by individuals, in the event of criminal conduct affecting the Union budget.
Why was the EPPO established?
The EPPO emerged as a necessity following significant losses of Union revenue, such as €140 billion due to transnational fraud in 2018 or €638 million of misused structural funds in 2015.
The mechanism by which it operates allows investigations to take place outside the borders of each of the 22 member states, which provides the necessary means to make investigations more efficient. This aspect should deter fraud, corruption or money laundering at European Union level and make it easier to discover the source of financial losses.
Thus, the 2022 annual report of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office announced the identification of damages of up to 14.1 billion euros from the EU budget and the conduct of more than 1100 investigations, a number that encourages the activity of the body that started its activity on June 1, 2021. Regarding these, a percentage of 47% of the registered damages were caused by cross-border VAT fraud.
Structure
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, based in Luxembourg, operates on two levels, centralized and decentralized (national).
At the central level, a European chief prosecutor is elected and a college of 22 prosecutors from the participating member states operates, whose responsibility includes defining the strategy, internal rules of the EPPO, as well as verifying the fulfillment of the condition that there is consistency between the investigated cases.
The European Chief Prosecutor also heads the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, whose duties include organizing its activity and representing the body in interaction with the Union institutions, member states and third countries.
At the national level, there are delegated European prosecutors of each member state participating in the consolidated cooperation whose activities involve criminal investigation and prosecution. At the same time, permanent chambers also operate at this level, whose role includes supervision, directing investigations and operational matters.
What is the importance of EPPO?
Before the EPPO, other European bodies, such as OLAF, Eurojust and Europol, were operating, but they were limited by the borders of the states where they started the investigations.
With the establishment of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the perpetrators of crimes can be much easier to identify even across borders, these bodies continuing to collaborate in order to achieve the unitary goal, namely: protecting the financial interests of the Union.
Hogea Bianca-Elena
Legal Intern R&R Partners Bucharest
If you would like to address more questions or if you need a legal consultation, you can contact us at office@rrpb.ro or by accessing our site www.rrpb.ro for more information.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel where new and updated content is posted monthly on various current topics!
Keep up to date with our latest articles!
- 5 things to do in Romania this summer
- How to obtain Romanian citizenship by naturalization
- 5 advantages of a Romanian passport
- How to register a Romanian Trademark?
