Brussels, 26/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 26 May the European Commission proposed a raft of measures to enable prosecutors and judges to fight more efficiently against fraud affecting the financial interests of the European Union - toughening up criminal legal measures, the creation of a European prosecutor's office...
Vice-President Viviane Reding pointed out that in 2009 alone there was €280 million in suspected fraud cases involving EU funds, representing less than 0.2% of the EU's total budget: “In times of economic austerity, every eurocent of the EU's budget counts. The EU will not tolerate that any taxpayer's money is misspent.”
With the Lisbon Treaty, the EU now has the legal toolbox to protect the EU's financial interests against EU budget fraud, such as the establishment of minimum criminal law rules (Article 83 TFEU), new investigative powers for Eurojust, the EU's judicial cooperation body (Article 85 TFEU) and the possibility of establishing a European Public Prosecutor's Office to combat crimes affecting the EU's financial interests (Article 86 TFEU).
The Commission's communication foresees several areas where criminal law could be further improved: - stronger procedures: the Commission will make it easier for prosecutors and judges across the EU to fight fraudsters by extending exchanges of information between different actors, including police, customs, tax authorities, judiciary authorities and other competent authorities; - a new proposal on mutual administrative assistance for the protection of the EU's financial interest is planned; - strengthening substantive criminal law: the Commission considers that the current definitions of relevant criminal offences such as embezzlement or abuse of power vary widely across the EU and should be clarified by means of initiatives on the protection of the financial interests by criminal law; - strengthening the role of bodies at European level: both OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) and Eurojust need to be further reinforced to carry out their investigations more effectively; - the EU will consider how a specialised European Public Prosecutor's Office could apply common rules on fraud and other offences against the EU's financial interests. (L.C./transl.fl)