19 Amendments of Alin MITUȚA related to 2020/2221(INI)
Amendment 8 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that value-added tax (VAT) fraud is another major component of revenue fraud; is concerned by the fact that criminal groups have been proven to exchange knowledge, information and intelligence in the area of VAT fraud, making extensive use of new technologies, alternative cryptocurrencies and shortcomings of legal business structures to enhance and conceal their criminal activities, generating multi-billion-euro profits from VAT fraud; highlights that according to the 2021 Europol EU- SOCTA Report, VAT fraud is committed by people with good knowledge of the VAT system, legislation and tax procedures;
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Points out that the concentration of agricultural income support is mainly driven by area-based direct payments; underlines the need for more targeted support and a better balance between large and small beneficiaries at Member State level; Recalls that over the last years the number of frauds has been reduced considerably;
Amendment 12 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Expresses its regret that subsidies are an area affected by fraud on the expenditure side of the Union budget; notes with deep concern that according to Europol reports, the number of such cases has steadily increased over the years; notes that subsidy fraud happens in many areas of EU spending, such as agriculture policy, cohesion policy, research and development and environmental policy; notes with concern that fraudulent applications for EU grants and tenders are usually based on false declarations, progress reports and invoices; points out that many such fraudulent activities are carried out by organised crime gangs;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Takes note of the special impact of organised crime in the misuse of common agricultural policy (CAP) funds; reiterates its concern that the current structure of CAP subsidies incentivises land grabbing by criminal and oligarchical structures; stresses that limited transparency in combination with corruption enables criminal organisations to keep their actions out of sight and prevent EU funding from reaching its intended beneficiaries; reiterates that the development of proper Union-level legal instruments against land grabbing and the enabling effective information sharing are crucial in this regard; highlights that the use of new technologies such as comprehensive digital land registers is essential in enhancing transparency, effective data collection and risk mitigation, ultimately reducing opportunities for fraudsters; welcomes the efforts of the Commission towards expanding the use of such technologies and calls on all Member States to speed up the implementation of these solutions;
Amendment 19 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Notes with concern that the Commission and OLAF have identified fraud in public tenders and procurement as a major trend among fraudsters; points out that fraud schemes often take place on a transnational level and can span several (EU and non-EU) countries, making them difficult to identify and dissolve; highlights that timely cooperation between national law enforcement authorities is a key component of an effective response to transnational crime; calls on the relevant European and national authorities to improve the interoperability of their systems, facilitating the timely exchange of information and enhancing cooperation and joint operations for tackling transnational organised crime;
Amendment 23 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Notes that the COVID-19 pandemic creates new opportunities for fraudsters and organised crime; notes with concern that Europol observed a rise in coronavirus-related criminal activities in the form of cybercrime, fraud and counterfeiting; recalls the scams and fake offers of vaccines detected by EU countries, as one of many harmful examples, where fraudsters tried to sell more than 1.1 billion vaccine doses for a total price of over EUR 15.4 billion; highlights that the threat of illicit sales of false COVID-19 Digital Certificates is rapidly growing with numerous examples identified in several Member States;
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Is concerned by the assessment of the PIF Report, which found that seven Member States detected fraud in relation to health infrastructure in 2019 and that health infrastructure was particularly affected by violations of public procurement rules; points out that the dependence on emergency procurement procedures in response to the COVID-19 crisis may have aggravated these problems; highlights that emergency procedures must respect the same standards of transparency and accountability as regular procedures; calls on the Commission and Member State authorities to complement these procedures through the use of risk mitigation tools, focusing on prevention, as well as through comprehensive ex-post controls and scrutiny;
Amendment 27 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Is worried by Europol’s expectation that the recession following the pandemic will create new opportunities for organised crime; warns that as organised crime follows the money, the unprecedented increase in EU spending in the context of the NextGenerationEU recovery plan offers major potential for misuse of funds by organised crime; highlights that this unprecedented increase in spending must be met with proper resources allocated to the relevant institutions which constitute the EU and national frameworks for fighting corruption, fraud and organized crime; recalls in this regard that the use of new technologies such as the ARACHNE and EDES systems should become compulsory elements of implementing the EU budget;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Is concerned that the task of estimating the extent and severity of the impact of organised crime on the EU budget has repeatedly been judged to be extremely difficult or even impossible; regrets that the Commission and national authorities lacks insight into the scale, nature and causes of fraud, and hasve to date not carried out a consistent assessment of undetected fraud; calls on the relevant national authorities to improve data collection and increase the reliability of data communicated to the Commission; calls on the Commission to coordinate and collaborate with Member State authorities in order to carry out a comprehensive EU-wide assessment into the actual size, nature and causes of fraud, involving the relevant EU Agencies and collaborating with partners from the EU's neighbouring countries;
Amendment 37 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Highlights that land grabbing and land concentration are practices that negatively affect biodiversity, economic and social welfare of local communities and generational renewal, and calls on the Commission to address these issues at EU level;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14 a. Underlines that the phenomena of organised crime, corruption and money laundering usually have a cross-border dimension that requires close cooperation between national authorities; Stresses, in this context, the importance of exchanges between law enforcement authorities; Encourages the Commission to develop a common rules framework that would allow Member States to transfer criminal proceedings to another Member State, in order to avoid parallel investigations;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Regards the PIF Directive as an important step towards protecting the EU budget, as it provides a common definition of criminal offences and the misuse of funds, and the harmonisation of sanctions for crimes against the EU’s financial interests; appreciates that the Directive sets out clear reporting and investigation procedures, defines the monitoring of the fraud risk management framework and promotes the use of information, databases and data analytics by Member States; welcomes the Commission's recent assessment on the implementation of the PIF Directive; notes with concern that the Commission identified several shortcomings in the transposition and implementation of the Directive, in particular with respect to the correct transposition of criminal offences, sanctions and provisions on jurisdiction and limitation periods; calls on the national authorities to cooperate with the Commission and swiftly address these shortcomings as a proper transposition is of vital importance in enabling the EPPO to conduct effective investigations and prosecutions;
Amendment 43 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Welcomes the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), with its mandate to investigate, prosecute and bring to judgment crimes against the EU budget, as an important asset in the fight against fraud and organised crime in the EU; calls for effective funding and appropriate allocation of human resources for the EPPO; regrets that five Member States have not yet joined the EPPO; calls on all remaining non-participating Member States to take the necessary steps towards joining the EPPO; regrets the lack of nominations of European delegated prosecutors, in particular by Slovenia, and considerable delays in many other Member States; highlights that this may represent a substantial hindrance in the EPPO’s effective fight against cross-border crime;
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Recalls that under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the EU is strengthening its support to managing authorities in their administrative controls and management checks of the European funds notably through the use of the Arachne platform. Underlines the importance of the Arachne platform becoming mandatory for Member States in particular in the context of managing agricultural funds;
Amendment 53 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Regrets that the national approaches to tackle organised crime vary significantly across Member States in terms of legislation, strategies and operational capacity; notes that this is partly due to varying levels of adoption and implementation of EU legislation; calls on the Commission to make use of its prerogatives and take the necessary measures for ensuring the timely and correct implementation of EU legislation;
Amendment 54 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Insists on greater resources for investigation, as well as on stronger coordination between the Member States and EU bodies (OLAF, ECA and EPPO), to ensure that the fight against fraud in agricultural funds is effective; emphasises the need for a comprehensive fraud strategy with a robust fraud risk analysis. Stresses the need to create a continuous EU training programme for employees of paying agencies to improve fraud detection and exchange best practices.
Amendment 59 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Highlights the need to better tackle environmental crimes of cross-border dimension which affect biodiversity and natural resources, such as illegal trade in plants and animals, illegal logging and timber trafficking, illegal waste trafficking; calls on the Commission to initiate the extension of the EPPO’s mandate in order to cover cross-border environmental crimes;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Calls on the Member States and the Commission to consider a more coherent use of all the available tools to detect and tackle fraud, in particular the Arachne IT platform and EDES; emphasises that the interoperability of Arachne, EDES, institutional and national databases is crucial for ensuring an effective information exchange aimed at preventing and identifying fraud against the EU budget; calls on the Commission to consider the extension ofextend the application of EDES to funds under shared management;
Amendment 75 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Highlights that an important step in fighting organised crime is making it less profitable; recalls in this regard the work of OLAF, whose investigations are a crucial tool in the fight against fraud; regrets that the indictment rate following recommendations by OLAF to Member States is low and follows a downward trend, as it decreased from 53 % in the 2007-2014 period to 37 % in the 2016- 2020 period; further notes that the extent to which financial amounts recommended for recovery are actually recovered has not been assessed in recent years, and that the most recent assessment covering the years 2002 to 2016 indicates a recovery rate of 30 %; calls on OLAF and the Commission to investigate the underlying reasons and on the Member States to cooperate closely with the Union bodies, to ensure that funds misused by organised crime are effectively recovered; invites the Commission to assess the possibility of complementing the current fragmented approach towards asset recovery through an EU-wide body in charge of ensuring the timely and effective recovery of EU funds;