Cooperation between authorities conducting administrative investigations and those conducting criminal investigations at both the EU and Member State levels is essential to ensure a high level of protection in view of the EU's financial interests. However, the legal framework governing the role and competences of individual authorities at the EU level seems much clearer than the corresponding national legal frameworks of the Member States. Indeed, at the Member State level, the legal frameworks for conducting investigations, whether administrative or criminal, significantly differ from Member State to Member State. Likewise, there is no clear legal framework at the EU level that defines and sets standards regarding the mandatory control mechanisms that must be established at the level of the entire system for the protection of the EU’s financial interests in the Member States. This also applies in relation to the players that need to be involved in the protection of the … Read more

The admissibility of evidence from other proceedings in criminal proceedings is a challenge for the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure. This is due to the fact that existing provisions first deal with the admissibility of evidence obtained according to the rules of the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure but hardly regulate the admissibility of evidence collected in accordance with other procedural rules. This raises the question of whether evidence from administrative proceedings can be used in criminal proceedings. In this context, restrictions on the use of evi-dence could result from the concept of evidence in the Austrian Code of Criminal Procedure, from the prohibitions on the use of evidence in administrative and criminal proceedings, from fundamental rights, and from regulations on the transfer of evidence. This article examines different scenarios and analyses the legal situation in Austria on how administrative evidence is dealt with in criminal proceedings.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), operational since 1 June 2021, has not just been established to bring the perpetrators of EU fraud to justice but also to help recover the criminal profits they have acquired in the process. Thus, its raison d’être not only matches the traditional political axiom that crime does not pay but equally serves another goal formulated by European politicians across the board: money spent under the EU budget should not end up in the wrong hands. From a taxpayers’ viewpoint, this understandable ambition has not proved to be self-fulfilling over time, and this is where the EPPO could well take up its role as the ultimate remedy in the EU’s antifraud chain. The risk of major fraud involving EU money particularly came to the fore after adoption of the Recovery and Resilience Facility in 2021, as it encompasses a staggering €800 billion that will undoubtedly … Read more

The European Commission and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) have a joint interest in effectively fighting, and mitigating the effects of, crimes against the EU’s financial interests. In 2021, they concluded an agreement to translate this mutual interest into concrete cooperation measures. Their cooperation is unique in the EU’s anti-fraud architecture, having regard to the Commission’s specific responsibility for managing and protecting the EU budget and the EPPO’s novel nature as the first EU body with criminal prosecution tasks. This article sets off the Commission’s initial negotiation objectives against the results and future outlook of their mutual cooperation.

This article aims to conceptualise and map Europe’s Eastern Partnership that is under attack from the outside – notably by Russia. It analyses the impacts of Russia’s hybrid warfare on the European Union. Russia’s relationship with the West is characterised by the collective trauma and stigma associated with the disintegration of the USSR, which inspired Putin’s geopolitical vision. However, in recent years, Putin’s Russia has sought to re-establish itself on the world stage by projecting power, harking back to the height of Soviet influence in the 1970s and 1980s. In this endeavour, Russia has used both private military companies and far-right terrorist groups in its hybrid war strategy against the European Union. This article analyses this development, suggesting that Russia is aiming to establish itself as an expansionist power in Europe with little regard for international law and norms.

Since 2014 persons allegedly involved in or supporting the undermining or threatening of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine are subject to freezing measures against their property and other financial resources within the European Union. As part of several comprehensive political and economic sanctioning packages initiated by the Commission and the Council after the invasion of February 2022, these financial sanctions have been significantly extended, currently targeting, inter alia, some 1,200 individuals, most of them of Russian nationality. This article provides a general overview of the concept of the EU's so-called targeted ("smart") sanctions and the adaption of this instrument to Russia's warfare in Ukraine, followed by an exploration of the plans for a further tightening of such measures as proposed by the European Commission. The intention is to go beyond the – temporary – freezing of assets owned by listed individuals and entities, thus promoting their seizure … Read more