Retsudvalget 2024-25, Finansudvalget 2024-25
REU Alm.del Bilag 271, FIU Alm.del Bilag 232
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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
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 FIU, Alm.del - 2024-25 - Bilag 232: Information and Invitation Visit from the European Public Prosecutor Office
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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.
Finally, to be noted that Denmark, as a non-participating Member State, does not contribute
to the financing of EPPO.
From a security perspective, given the most dangerous criminal organizations’ heavy
involvement in defrauding the EU budget (in particular on the revenue side) the EPPO is in
the first line of the fight against organised crime in the EU.
As organised crime groups are involved in more crime areas, by gathering huge volumes of
evidence in its investigations and sharing the elements falling outside the scope of its
competence (such as drugs, trafficking in weapons, etc.) with the relevant national
authorities, the EPPO also directly contributes to their fight against organised crime
groups.
The EPPO also protects EU manufacturers from unfair competition from abroad. Taking
advantage
of the EU’s weak enforcement of customs and anti-dumping
duties, companies
from third countries end up paying much less customs duties than they should. There is no
official estimate of the “customs gap” but all indications point to many billions EUR
per year.
When they commit customs fraud, third country operators also commit VAT fraud (by
undervaluing the goods or through carousel fraud). This is also into many billion EUR per
year (total VAT gap resulting from fraud estimated at 50 billion EUR per year by Europol).
Take e-bikes. There have been several EPPO cases where Chinese e-bikes are declared as
being produced in another country with lower duties. Or they are imported as “e-bike parts”
which have lower duties than complete e-bikes. European e-bike manufacturers are
therefore suffering from unfair competition.
Finally, as an independent prosecution office, the EPPO strengthens the rule of law in the EU,
by investigating corruption involving EU funds, including cases of high-level corruption and
bribery.
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