ESI funds legal framework highlights a growing relevance of public-private financing initiatives such as the innovative set of rules supporting PPP operations or financial instruments because of their leverage effect and their capacity to combine different forms of public and private resources. Most of the time, these alternative financing sources imply peculiar irregularities, fraud, and corruption risks related to complex services by transnational financial actors. The current project aims to elaborate specifically on designed macro indicators and select appropriate preventive administrative measures to assess irregularity fraud and corruption risks. The protection of EU financial interests related to ESI funds should lay on three pillars: effectiveness, coordination, and cooperation between competent authorities (art. 325 TFEU). Contrasting irregularities, frauds, and corruption require a balanced set of preventive and remedying legal measures that act as a deterrent and afford adequate protection. Nowadays, the EU legal framework is based on an extensive array of remedying and sanctioning (ex-post) mechanisms, safeguarding the financial interests of the EU: not by chance, the EU Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) aims to improve the criminal law enforcement, as well as the proposal to enhance OLAF cooperation along with EPPO to support the effectiveness of investigations, or the system (EDES) established by the European Commission to reinforce the protection of such interests by ensuring sound financial management, and to keen administrative sanction procedures and exclusion processes against fraudsters. In sum, the most recent evolution of the EU legal framework shows valuable progress in remedying and sanctioning mechanisms. However, preventive legal protection is not yet sufficient under EU law, partly recognized by the 2019 Commission Anti-fraud strategy. Of course, EU authorities may carry out on-the-spot controls and reviews on the Member States managing authorities during external inspections. Regarding coordination and cooperation between authorities, even though it facilitates cooperation and information exchange, the EU system (AFCOS) is still mainly focused on ex-post measures and procedures (investigation). Prevention mechanisms are basically left at a mere advisory level, according to the role played by COCOLAF. It follows from such a complex framework that the need to investigate more robust coordination mechanisms between European and National managing authorities owing to boost cooperation in establishing preventive administrative measures, as a homogeneous system of guidelines sharing a standard risk assessment and risk management methodologies. The point is to assess anti-fraud preventive measures as efficiency patterns capable of general application and then identify a set of preventive measures and risk-assessment methods, establishing a standard anti-fraud administrative frame for EU Institutions and National Authorities vested with the power to protect financial interests. Furthermore, the project aims to point out a set of macro-indicators (i.e., bias, fair proceeding, impartiality, projects financial sustainability, etc.) to assess fraud risks related to financial interests of European scale and, therefore, to select a harmonized scheme of preventive administrative measures.

Financial Interest of European Scale

Daniele Senzani
Primo
2021

Abstract

ESI funds legal framework highlights a growing relevance of public-private financing initiatives such as the innovative set of rules supporting PPP operations or financial instruments because of their leverage effect and their capacity to combine different forms of public and private resources. Most of the time, these alternative financing sources imply peculiar irregularities, fraud, and corruption risks related to complex services by transnational financial actors. The current project aims to elaborate specifically on designed macro indicators and select appropriate preventive administrative measures to assess irregularity fraud and corruption risks. The protection of EU financial interests related to ESI funds should lay on three pillars: effectiveness, coordination, and cooperation between competent authorities (art. 325 TFEU). Contrasting irregularities, frauds, and corruption require a balanced set of preventive and remedying legal measures that act as a deterrent and afford adequate protection. Nowadays, the EU legal framework is based on an extensive array of remedying and sanctioning (ex-post) mechanisms, safeguarding the financial interests of the EU: not by chance, the EU Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) aims to improve the criminal law enforcement, as well as the proposal to enhance OLAF cooperation along with EPPO to support the effectiveness of investigations, or the system (EDES) established by the European Commission to reinforce the protection of such interests by ensuring sound financial management, and to keen administrative sanction procedures and exclusion processes against fraudsters. In sum, the most recent evolution of the EU legal framework shows valuable progress in remedying and sanctioning mechanisms. However, preventive legal protection is not yet sufficient under EU law, partly recognized by the 2019 Commission Anti-fraud strategy. Of course, EU authorities may carry out on-the-spot controls and reviews on the Member States managing authorities during external inspections. Regarding coordination and cooperation between authorities, even though it facilitates cooperation and information exchange, the EU system (AFCOS) is still mainly focused on ex-post measures and procedures (investigation). Prevention mechanisms are basically left at a mere advisory level, according to the role played by COCOLAF. It follows from such a complex framework that the need to investigate more robust coordination mechanisms between European and National managing authorities owing to boost cooperation in establishing preventive administrative measures, as a homogeneous system of guidelines sharing a standard risk assessment and risk management methodologies. The point is to assess anti-fraud preventive measures as efficiency patterns capable of general application and then identify a set of preventive measures and risk-assessment methods, establishing a standard anti-fraud administrative frame for EU Institutions and National Authorities vested with the power to protect financial interests. Furthermore, the project aims to point out a set of macro-indicators (i.e., bias, fair proceeding, impartiality, projects financial sustainability, etc.) to assess fraud risks related to financial interests of European scale and, therefore, to select a harmonized scheme of preventive administrative measures.
2021
Financial Interests of European Scale: Assessing the Effectiveness of Preventive Administrative Approach.
9
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Daniele Senzani
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11585/874541
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