Executive summary

• Author: European Anti-Fraud Office (European Commission)
• Pages: 9-10

9

th Annual Report on the Protection of the European Union’s financial interests — Fight against fraud 

Executive summary

Thirty years protecting the EU’s financial interests

This is the Commission’s 30th annual report on t he protection of the EU’s f‌inancial inter-

ests and the f‌ight against fraud (PIF Report). This thirty-year period can be divided into

three phas es of roughly a decade.

During the f‌ir st phase (1989-1998), the legislat ive foundations of the f‌ight aga inst fraud

and irregul arities were laid down.

The second decade (1999-200 8) was a period of consolidation, operational reforms and

the larges t enlargement in the Europ ean Union’s history.

During the third decade (2009-2018), the protection of the EU’s f‌inancial interests ex-

perienced a fresh impetus. The European institutions agr eed on a series of new acts and

initiatives to fu rther strength en the f‌ight against frau d at EU level and the conditio ns were

set for a new player — the E uropean Public Prosecut or’s Of‌f‌ice (EPPO) — to come on the

scene soon.

Main cross-cutting initiatives adopted and developed in 

During 2018, the last year of the third phase, new f‌inancial rules were adopted (in the

‘Omnibus regulation’) to simplify and streamline the use of EU funds and to redef‌ine

conf‌lict of int erests for all the f‌inancia l actors implementing t he EU budget in the various

management modes, including at national level.

As the insti tutions negotiate th e legal framework for the multia nnual f‌inancial framewor k

for 2021-2027, the anti-fraud provisions for the spending programmes are being fur ther

ref‌ined. Any person or entity receiving EU funds will have to fully cooperate in the pro-

tection of t he EU’s f‌inancial interest s. They must grant the ne cessary access rights t o the

Commission, OL AF, the EPPO and the Eur opean Court of Audit ors and ensure that an y third

parties inv olved in the implementation o f EU funds do the same.

Highlights in the revenue area

On the revenu e side, the Commission pres ented a new action pla n to continue to ef‌fec tive-

ly f‌ight illicit tra de in tobacco.

New rules were adopted to curb transnational VAT fraud. Mutual administrative assis-

tance between Member States increased thanks to a new possibility to set up joint ad-

ministrative en quiries and to a network of national EU Member State analysts working in

dif‌ferent areas of fr aud risk under the Eurof‌isc fra mework.

In line with the Commission’s recommendations in the 2017 PIF Report, Member States

have rolled out new IT tools, risk-based approaches and initiatives to counter the chal-

lenges posed by t he undervaluation of goods (particularly footwear and textiles), includ-

ing via e-commerce. Although Member States detected fewer irregularities than in 2017

in the customs area (traditional own resources — TOR), the f‌inancial cost of these irreg-

ularities wa s higher. Similarly, detected fraud wa s stable, but the relat ed f‌inancial impact

was higher.

In the TOR area, this report recommends further measures to address issues linked to

cross-border e-commerce, particularly the potential abuse of low-value consignments.