On 17 July 2013, the European Commission published two legislative proposals to further strengthen the EU's fight against fraud:
- a proposal on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which aims to strengthen the procedural framework to deal with offences affecting the EU's financial interests, covering the status and structure of the new EU office with investigation and prosecution functions, rules and procedures governing investigations, prosecutions and trial proceedings, judicial review and data protection; and
- a proposal on the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (or Eurojust) which aims to improve the operation and efficiency of the agency, which was first established in 2002 and which facilitates coordination and cooperation between Member State investigative and prosecutorial authorities. These proposals link to the European Commission's legislative proposal on the fight against fraud for the financial interests of the EU by means of criminal law, published in July 2012, which sets out harmonised criminal law provisions for preventing and fighting fraud. All three proposals are now subject to the EU legislative process.
The proposals are available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/criminal/files/regulation_eppo_en.pdf; and
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/criminal/files/regulation_eurojust_en.pdf
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