On 1 March 2024, the EPPO published its Annual Report for the year 2023. The report gives an overview of the EPPO’s operational activities and the activities of its College, permanent Chambers, and 140 European Delegated Prosecutors (for the 2022 report → eucrim 1/2023, 18, for the first report 2021 → eucrim 1/2022, 15-16).

Last year, the European Delegated Prosecutors Association was formally registered, aiming to facilitate better cooperation between the EPPO's Central Office and its decentralised level. Key figures for the year 2023 are:

• Receipt and processing of 4187 crime reports (26% more than in 2022);
• Opening of 1371 investigations (58% more than in 2022);
• Total of 1927 active investigations and an overall estimated damage of €19.2 billion;
• 206 active investigations related to NextGenerationEU funding, with an estimated damage of over €1.8 billion.
• VAT fraud accounted for 17.5% of the overall damage with an estimated damage of €11.5 billion;
• Of the 4187 crime reports, 2494 were from private parties and 1562 from national authorities;
• Only 108 reports came from EU institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies.

Looking at these numbers, the report concludes that the level of detecting fraud affecting the financial interests of the EU in the participating Member States has further improved. Public awareness about the EPPO has increased, but there was no improvement in terms of detection and reporting on the part of EU institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies.

In 2023, the EPPO opened 58% more investigations than in the previous year, corresponding to damage estimated at €12.28 billion. In addition, it filed 50% more indictments (139) than in 2022, bringing more perpetrators of EU fraud to judgment before national courts. National judges granted European Delegated Prosecutors freezing orders worth €1.5 billion.

The majority of investigated offences identified in active EPPO cases concern non-procurement expenditure fraud (1486), VAT revenue fraud (806), and inextricably linked offences (599). Next in line are offences such as non-VAT revenue fraud, procurement expenditure fraud, money laundering, PIF-crime focused criminal organisation, corruption, and misappropriation. Most of the active funding fraud investigations took place for agricultural and rural development programmes as well as regional and urban development programmes. However, such investigations also took place for other programmes, involving recovery and resilience, employment, social cohesion, inclusion and values, maritime and fisheries, research and innovation, international cooperation, education and culture, mobility, transport, energy, digitalisation, asylum, migration, integration, industry and entrepreneurships, climate and environment, and security and defence.

Next to the general overview, the annual report analyses the operational activity, relevant judicial activity, typologies of identified active EPPO cases, and active fraud investigations for each of the 22 Member States participating in the EPPO in 2023. Looking at its relationship with non-participating Member States and non-EU countries in 2023, cooperation with Poland and Ireland took effect, and a working arrangement with the Ministry of Justice of the Kingdom of Denmark was signed. Furthermore, the agency concluded working arrangements with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the Albanian Special Anti-Corruption Structure, and the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Lastly, the annual report provides an overview on IT, security, corporate services, staff development, human resources, transparency, relations with the general public and the press, activities of the legal service, data protection, and financial resources (with a budget of €66 million for the delivery of the EPPO’s mission in 2023).