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 Commis sion’s 30th ann ual report on t he protection of the EU’s f‌in ancial inter-

ests and t he f‌ight against fr aud (PIF Repor t). This thir ty-year perio d can be divided i nto

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 de cade (1999-200 8) was a period of cons olidation, oper ational reforms a nd

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

During the t hird decade (20 09-2018), the prote ction of the E U’s f‌inancial int erests ex-

perienced a fres h impetus. Th e European ins titutions 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 th e

scene soon.

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

During 2018, the l ast year of the t hird phase, new f‌i nancial rules w ere adopted (in t he

‘Omnibus regulation’) to simplify and str eamline the us e of EU funds and to r edef‌ine

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-frau d provisions for the sp ending progra mmes are being fur ther

ref‌ined. A ny person or ent ity receiving E U funds will have to fully c ooperate in th e 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 ad opted to cur b transnation al VAT fraud. Mutual ad ministrative a ssis-

tance bet ween Member Stat es increased t hanks to a new p ossibility to se t up joint ad-

ministrative en quiries and to a network of nati onal EU Member St ate analysts w orking in

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

In line with th e Commission’s recomm endations in t he 2017 PIF Report, M ember States

have rolled out new I T tools, risk-b ased approa ches and initia tives to count er the chal-

lenges posed by t he undervaluation of goods ( particul arly footwear an d textiles), inc lud-

ing via e-comm erce. Althoug h Member States d etected fewer ir regularit ies than in 2017

in the custom s area (tradition al own resource s — TOR), the f‌ina ncial cost of thes e irreg-

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

was higher.

In the TOR area , this repor t recommends fur ther measu res to address iss ues linked to

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