The Protection of the EU’s Financial Interests in the Next Generation EU: From PIF Directive to RRF Regulation

This paper analyses the protection of the EU’s financial interests in the NGEU in order to circumscribe the perimeter of the competences of the actors involved and their respective extent. Firstly, it examines the protection of the EU’s financial interests in primary law as well as in the Recovery and Resilience Facility Regulation in order to establish the kind of competences concerned. Within this ambit, it shows the most important innovation to the legal framework of the topic apported from secondary law. Secondly, this paper defines the level playing field of the protection of the EU’s financial interest resulting from the NRRPs. It also examines the dimensions of this level playing field and determine to what extent, and with what regulatory results, the PIF Directive has been implemented in these regards by the Member States. Thirdly, it identifies the most significant shortcomings in the anti-fraud measures of the NRRPs and the consequences of these gaps on the implementation of the NRRPs themselves, both on the functioning of the internal market and on the EU considered as a whole. Finally, it observes the role of the Commission, the OLAF and the EPPO in the protection at issue.