26 juin 2025
Briefing note
How is the European Public Prosecutor Office beneficial for a non-participating Member State?
The EPPO is a transnational prosecution office covering 24 EU Member States. There are three non-
participating Member States (Denmark, Ireland and Hungary) with whom EPPO cooperates as if it
were a prosecution office of another Member State, via the EU / international judicial cooperation
instruments.
The EPPO is in charge of investigating and bringing to national courts cases of fraud affecting the EU
financial interests. This covers EU expenditure (funds and administrative expenses) and revenue
(customs
–
antidumping, VAT).
The EPPO has a legal framework enabling unprecedently efficient cross-border investigations and
prosecutions. What takes weeks and months in traditional judicial cooperation, takes hours and
days inside the EPPO-zone. Moreover, through swift access to information in participating Member
States, the EPPO gains an unprecedented overview of cross-border fraudulent chains. This is
particularly relevant in customs and VAT fraud (notably carousel fraud), which is very profitable to
organised crime (both from inside and outside the EU). In addition, the EPPO is specialised
in economic and financial crime.
So how is the EPPO beneficial to a non-participating Member State?
Denmark benefits from the existence of EPPO from four main perspectives
–
budget, security,
protection of Danish industry from unfair external competition and, in general, protection of rule of
law in the EU.
From a budget perspective, this is linked to how the EU is financed. Member States decide ceilings
of EU expenditure in the Multi-Annual Financial Framework. The EU revenue comes from customs
duties (collected by Member States and passed on to the EU, with deduction of a flat fee), VAT
revenue (statistically calculated from Member States’ VAT receipts) and Member States
contribution based on GNI.
As the EPPO fights customs fraud and VAT fraud, that means that it reduces criminality in this area
and recovers assets. Less customs and VAT fraud means more revenue from customs and VAT.
Ultimately, this means more national revenue (VAT) as well as a decrease in GNI contributions to
the EU budget.
Moreover, when it comes to expenditure fraud, the EPPO investigations are the basis for the
recovery of illegally spent amounts to the EU budget.
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