Source: European Parliament
1. Despite significant progress in cross-border cooperation against financial crimes, it is important that Member States systemically launch financial investigations when investigating serious criminal offenses. Swift transposition of the new Directive on asset recovery[1] will ensure that asset-tracing is part of all investigations into organised crime. The new rules on exchange of information[2] also boost police cooperation against financial crime. Europol and Eurojust support operational cooperation to tackle financial crimes, and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) prosecutes crimes, playing a key role in dismantling criminal activities across the EU, while OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, complements these efforts by detecting, investigating, and preventing fraud, both affecting the EU’s financial interests.
2. Acting as the ‘information hub’ for EU law enforcement, Europol provides the EPPO access to information from national law enforcement authorities stored in its information system. The Commission will take into account the cooperation with EPPO, and the need to further enhance it, when evaluating the current legal framework for Europol[3], and in any proposals that may follow.
3. The Commission has launched reflections, supported by the High-Level Forum on the Future of EU Criminal Justice[4], on areas in which the EPPO will need more powers to look at cross-border serious crime, in particular corruption that impacts EU funds and cannot be handled alone by Member States . The EPPO’s role, and cooperation with Eurojust and Europol, will also be considered.