European Public Prosecutor's Office: new and more effective tools needed to fight 500 million Euro annual fraud

The European Parliament has approved Salvatore Iacolino's Report on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) for prosecuting offences affecting the Union’s financial interests

"The European Parliament has sent a strong message to the Council and the Commission on the European Institutions' will to protect the resources that, through fraud and other crimes, are taken away from services, welfare and the whole community. It is estimated that fraud at the EU level, often transnational, amounts to 500 million Euro per year," said Salvatore Iacolino MEP, author of the interim report, on the sidelines of the vote in the Strasbourg plenary.

"500 million Euro is an exorbitant amount," adds Mr Iacolino, "which requires new tools and a greater commitment to pursuing crimes such as corruption, misappropriation and embezzlement of EU funds. We believe that an effective response will be provided by the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which will use national prosecutors and will work in close collaboration with Eurojust, Europol and OLAF.”

"With the other political groups representing the European Parliament," underlined Iacolino, "we have reached a series of agreements with regard to the definition of a common political agenda on legal guidelines for the determination of jurisdiction, for investigative measures, for the admissibility of evidence as well as for the closing of investigations within a common European area of justice, providing an important contribution for the preparation of the final text."

“The European Public Prosecutor's Office, when fully implemented, could use effective investigative tools such as the European Arrest Warrant, the European Investigation Order and seizure and confiscation. In addition, the anti-money laundering package has defined rules of transparency that will allow the Prosecutor to easily track suspicious financial transactions that could in reality be fraud or corruption,” added Iacolino. “Now it will be up to the Council to find an agreement among Member States on an instrument that represents a real step forward in judicial cooperation on criminal matters among the Member States and in defence of the legal economy," concluded Iacolino.