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“Blacklisting” is not being used effectively to protect EU money from being paid out to untrustworthy individuals or entities, a report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) says. In particular, there is no coherent set of obligations for the different payment modes.

On 16 May 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal for the recast of the EU’s financial rules applicable to its general budget, known as the “Financial Regulation”. It is proposed that improvements are made around three axes: increased transparency, better protection, and more agility.

On 6 July 2022, the European Parliament and the Council passed new legislation that establishes the category of “information alerts” for entries into the Schengen Information System (SIS). “Information alerts” target third country nationals who are suspected to be involved in terrorist offences or other serious crime (listed in Annex I of the Europol Regulation 2016/794).

On 28 June 2022, the amendments to the 2016 Europol Regulation entered into force. This news item summarises the main elements of the changes to Europol's legal framework and points out critical voices that still remain following the compromise on Europol's new tasks and mandate found by the European Parliament and the Council.

On 1 June 2022, the EPPO presented updated figures on its operations since the official operational start one year ago. The body also pointed out to tangible improvements and current key challenges. Laura Kövesi, the European Chief Prosecutor proposed the creation of an elite corps of fraud investigators who could work transnationally within the EPPO.

After having assumed its operational tasks in June 2021, the EPPO recently reported on the first convictions in EPPO cases in several EU countries. This news item gives an overview of these verdicts.

This news item continues the regular overview of EPPO’s operational activities in the past months. It reports on the activities from April to July 2022.

On 8 June 2022, the EPPO established the first formal cooperation arrangement with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of a Member State. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the Italian FIU.

One of OLAF’s operational priorities is the fight against the illegal trade in refrigerant gases (also called F-gases or hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)), which are heavily regulated in the EU due to their major potential impact on the environment (→ eucrim 3/2021, 143-144). On 30 June …

On 24 June 2022, European law enforcement authorities reported on the results of the sixth edition of “Operation Lake”, which was carried out between November 2021 and June 2022. This annual operation targets the smuggling of the protected European glass eel. Europol, OLAF, the …