Directive 2017/1371 - Fight against fraud to the Union's financial interests by means of criminal law - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 198/29

The protection of the Union's financial interests concerns not only the management of budget appropriations, but extends to all measures which negatively affect or which threaten to negatively affect its assets and those of the Member States, to the extent that those measures are of relevance to Union policies.

The Convention drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, on the protection of the European Communities' financial interests of 26 July 1995 (3), including the Protocols thereto of 27 September 1996 (4), of 29 November 1996 (5) and of 19 June 1997 (6) (the ‘Convention’) establishes minimum rules relating to the definition of criminal offences and sanctions in the area of fraud affecting the Union's financial interests. The Member States drew up the Convention, in which it was noted that fraud affecting Union revenue and expenditure in many cases was not confined to a single country and was often committed by organised criminal networks. On that basis, it was already recognised in the Convention that the protection of the Union's financial interests called for the criminal prosecution of fraudulent conduct injuring those interests. In parallel, Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2988/95 (7) was adopted. That Regulation lays down general rules relating to homogenous checks and to administrative measures and penalties concerning irregularities with regard to Union law while, at the same time, referring to sectoral rules in that area, fraudulent actions as defined in the Convention and the application of the Member States' criminal law and proceedings.

Union policy in the area of the protection of the Union's financial interests has already been the subject of harmonisation measures such as Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2988/95. In order to ensure the implementation of Union policy in this area, it is essential to continue to approximate the criminal law of the Member States by complementing the protection of the Union's financial interests under administrative and civil law for the most serious types of fraud-related conduct in that field, whilst avoiding inconsistencies, both within and among those areas of law.

The protection of the Union's financial interests calls for a common definition of fraud falling within the scope of this Directive, which should cover fraudulent conduct with respect to revenues, expenditure and assets at the expense of the general budget of the European Union (the ‘Union budget’), including financial operations such as borrowing and lending activities. The notion of serious offences against the common system of value added tax (‘VAT’) as established by Council Directive 2006/112/EC (8) (the ‘common VAT system’) refers to the most serious forms of VAT fraud, in particular carrousel fraud, VAT fraud through missing traders, and VAT fraud committed within a criminal organisation, which create serious threats to the common VAT system and thus to the Union budget. Offences against the common VAT system should be considered to be serious where they are connected with the territory of two or more Member States, result from a fraudulent scheme whereby...