The EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is a very particular option for managing resources at EU level. One of its features is the involvement of national audit authorities when it comes to ensuring that financed projects are implemented in a timely and reliable fashion. In this context, the success of the RRF as a managing and auditing scheme of EU resources is assessed against certain criteria, which can be weighted differently. Using the example of the audit arrangements in Greece, this article seeks to highlight the need for a balanced approach between the two main objectives of the audit process: flexibility and compliance.

Asset recovery has been at the forefront of recent international initiatives in the areas of criminal law and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. In this spirit, the Conference of the Parties to the Warsaw Convention on money laundering and the financing of terrorism aims to further improve the existing framework standards of the Council of Europe. This is to be done by means of an “Asset Recovery” Protocol to the 2005 Warsaw Convention, which will seek to strike a balance between the task of depriving criminals of their illicit gains and the parallel obligation to respect the rights of the accused and of third parties, in accordance with the principles stemming from case law of the European Court of Human Rights. This article outlines the rationale behind this initiative and the main targets of reform.

The act of “rethinking” corruption is necessary due to a global stagnation after more than two decades of international anticorruption efforts. The issue of corruption is being reframed as a security issue, rather than a developmental one, but the role international agency play in changing a country is still prominent. This article sums up the lessons learned from theoretical and practical advances outlined in the author’s book on “Rethinking Corruption.” It makes a clear argument in favour of rethinking corruption outside the traditional framework and offers a forecasting method, alongside state-of-the-art analytical, fact-based tools to map, assess, and predict corruption risks.
The author argues that corruption is a policy issue frequently overriding individual choice, and can only be tackled by strong policy interventions. She explains the limits of international intervention and demonstrates how much unfinished business was left behind by the developmental approach to anticorruption – business that can only be … Read more

This article features the summary of the EU-funded ParTFin project. The full report can be downloaded below and separately cited by using a unique DOI number (10.30709/eucrim-2023-031). The project aimed at providing guidance for policymakers, competent authorities, and obliged entities on how to ensure that public-private information-sharing mechanisms in the field of financial crime can operate effectively and at the same time align with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

This article refers to the Polish anti-corruption law and the new European Commission proposal for a Directive on combating corruption. It aims at analysing the Polish provisions currently in force in light of the Commission proposal. Against the background of the anticipated new EU legal instruments, the author points out the most significant loopholes in Polish law hindering an effective fight against corruption. The analysis carried out in the article indicates, in particular, that there is a high need to modify the Polish legal framework as regards the liability of collective entities for offences. Compliance measures need to be adopted. In addition, the author advocates putting in place preventive measures and effectively penalizing corruption in the private sector in Poland.

The anti-corruption package presented by the European Commission in May 2023 reaffirms the priority given to combating corruption crimes in the EU. In response to the current disharmony and fragmentation of national legal systems, the proposal for a new EU Directive on combating corruption calls for greater alignment at the European level. By applying the EU’s “non-exclusive” competence in criminal matters, serious corruption offenses will be countered on a shared basis, also in view of their potential cross-border dimension. The authors argue, however, that there are provisions in the proposed directive that raise serious doubts as to the adherence to the principle of proportionality, the tendency to largely equalize responses to corruption in the public and private sectors, and the preservation of basic principles of criminal law, such as legality and the degree of certainty required for offences.