The article follows up the efforts undertaken by the EU Commission together with the Council of the European Union to set up the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). Preparing the EPPO to become operational by 2020 was a top political priority during the Bulgarian Council Presidency, given the paramount importance of the proper protection of the EU’s financial interests against fraud and misuse of EU money. In the first part, information is provided on how the Presidency drove forward the initial steps to structure the EPPO and enhance its coordination with other EU partner agencies.

In the second part, the article gives an overview of EPPO’s powers that make it a unique EU organism equipped with the necessary tools to effectively investigate crimes against EU funds. This overview is followed by an analysis on the challenges that lay ahead particularly for the integration of the European Delegated Prosecutors into this … Read more

After giving an overview of the current and envisaged role of Eurojust, this article outlines the future relationship between Eurojust and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). Here, the author identifies three levels of possible links between the two bodies: the institutional level, the operational level, and the administrative level for the sharing of services. They have a common denominator: the need to establish an intense reciprocal cooperation scheme, despite the diversity of the functions of the two bodies. If this strong cooperation is implemented in practice, it can become the driving force around which the entire European judicial area can be redesigned, in such a way that Eurojust will still continue to play a central role as regards judicial coordination and cooperation in criminal matters. Therefore, a non-antagonistic relationship with the European Public Prosecutor should be aimed for and pursued.

The current institutional set-up to fight EU fraud is considered unsatisfactory. With the creation of the EPPO, the definition of the offences it will investigate and prosecute, and the OLAF Regulation under revision, the EU has carved out a new institutional set-up. The objective, both from an administrative (OLAF) and criminal law perspective (EPPO), is to successfully investigate fraud and corruption affecting the EU’s financial interests. In addition to institutional and legal implementing steps, it is also important to consider what needs to be put in place in order to ensure the future quality of investigations, especially from the training perspective. This article presents some observations from the operational field with regard to what is arguably one of the major tools for enhancing the quality of PIF investigations: interviewing suspects.

Spain has been especially supportive of the creation of the EPPO after its mention in the Treaty of Lisbon − and even before that. Notwithstanding, Spain negotiated the implementation of the EPPO knowing that this would necessitate – partly fundamental − structural changes of its national system of criminal procedure. This system is currently characterised by giving an investigative judge the leading role in criminal investigations; prosecutors are actually one of several parties in the criminal proceedings. In contrast, the EPPO Regulation is based on the more conventional system common all around Europe, consisting in giving the said leading role to prosecutors. After outlining the main structure of the Spanish system of criminal investigation, the article deals with the major challenges that Spain has to meet in order to align its national system to the model imposed by the Regulation regarding cases in which the European Public Prosecutor will assume … Read more

The focus of this article is on the challenge to which extent EU Member States cooperate. It describes the current landscape of judicial criminal cooperation in the EU, taking into account available data. Hence, one can state that cooperation tools are being increasingly used, but this creates imbalances, which naturally crop up in any cooperation system. This is the starting point for addressing a proper understanding of the various possible reactions in order to tackle these imbalances. One reaction relates to the breach of fundamental rights by the issuing Member State. The article outlines that the results of this strategy, however, could be negative in the long term. Merely mentioning fundamental rights will not make Member States more respectful of them. It is further argued that problems involving fundamental rights should be solved with already existing and tailor-made instruments for this purpose and not by altering the cooperation rationale.

In the context of the European Union’s area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ), “the need to strike the right balance” between the effectiveness of criminal prosecution and cooperation in criminal matters, and the protection of fundamental rights, but also between the primacy of EU law and national constitutions, is a core goal. By addressing two precise scenarios, this article attempts to show how the “needed balances” are understood. This analysis will further serve to show whether the EU is moving in the right direction in the field of cooperation matters. The first scenario will focus on the protection of fundamental rights in cross-border investigations within the context of EPPO proceedings under Regulation (EU) 2017/1939. Secondly, a number of aspects regarding the European Arrest Warrant are analysed. The author argues that, even if the AFSJ is advancing in quite a measured way, much can still be done to improve the … Read more