On 22/23 April 2024, OLAF and the EPPO held an Operational Partnership Conference in Brussels. Prosecutors and financial investigators from the EPPO and investigators, forensic experts and analysts from OLAF convened to share experiences and best practices as well as to discuss challenges in the investigation of complex cross-border fraud damaging the EU budget.

According to the EPPO Regulation, the two bodies should maintain a close relationship based on mutual cooperation within their respective mandates and on information exchange. The relationship shall aim in particular to ensure that all available means are used to protect the Union’s financial interests through the complementarity and support by OLAF to the EPPO. On 5 July 2021, European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi and OLAF Director-General Ville Itälä signed a working arrangement that sets out the future operational cooperation between the EPPO and OLAF (→ eucrim 2/2021, 80).