Event

04 to 05 October 2021 Online

Towards a Multi-Tiered System to Protect EU Financial Interests

Annual Forum on Combatting Fraud in the EU 2021

Published 3 years, 2 months ago

Organizer Academy of European Law (ERA)
Link Event website
Contact Laviero Buono

Objective

Directive (EU) 2017/1371, also known as the “PIF Directive”, aims at strengthening administrative and criminal law procedures to fight fraud against the European Union’s financial interests. Its objective is to deter fraudsters, improve the prosecution and sanctioning of crimes against the EU budget and facilitate the recovery of misused EU funds, thereby increasing the protection of EU taxpayers’ money.
In this context, OLAF has key tasks in its investigative and policy mission. Today, however, there are other measures at EU and national level to support the new antifraud landscape (especially since the establishment of the EPPO). Cooperation horizontally between EU bodies involved in the protection of the Union's financial interests (e.g. OLAF, EPPO, Eurojust, Europol) and vertically with national authorities becomes vital.
The overall aim of this event is to show from a practical perspective how close cooperation, information exchange and complementary tasks can guarantee a more effective fight against all types of fraud affecting the EU financial interests.

Key topics

  • Presentation of the key features of the 2017 PIF Directive
  • An overview of the role and powers of EU bodies engaged in preventing and fighting frauds affecting the EU financial interests
  • A view from the coalface: work carried out at local level by national authorities
  • Case studies/lessons (to be) learnt
  • A future EU anti-fraud landscape and possible synergies among the bodies active in fighting frauds affecting the EU financial interests

The conference is supported by the EU's Hercule III Programme, managed by OLAF.

It is targeted at judges, prosecutors, government officials, lawyers in private practice and other stakeholders. The conference will be attended by the presidents and members of the national associations for the protection of the financial interests of the European Union.