European Public Prosecutor – Essay by Codru Vrabie

23 March 2007

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	The European Public Prosecutor for the Protection of Financial Interests ~ assessment of program theory and implementation priorities ~

Acknowledgments

Front cover cartoon adapted from Ioniţă, courtesy of Transparency International—the Romanian Chapter. © 2003-07 “Regional Initiative for Integrity Messages”

Special thanks to Professor Hans van Mierlo of Maastricht University, for his patience in guiding my research over the timespan of Module 4—Comparative Policy Evaluation in the European Union, in spite of my several delays, due to personal problems.

I am grateful to my group colleagues, for their challenging questions and useful comments that opened a new perspective on the selected topic: Karin Biemans, Edy Diaconeasa, Maja Karas, Svetlana Katnić, Andrea Matušaková, Boyan Penev, Guna Rudzite, Vincent Villeneuve and Ivan Welters

This evaluation report may be copied, reproduced, or otherwise multiplied, in full or in part, for educational and/or nonprofit purposes. Prior, written consent from the author is advisable.

The SParrow—studii politice logo, picture and text, may not be copied or reproduced, in any way, shape or form, without prior, written consent from their rightful owner, who can be contacted via email at cvrabie@yahoo.com.

© 2001-07 Codru Vrabie

Executive Summary

Following the February 2007 joint request of the European Judicial Network Secretariat and of the European Commission's Directorate-General Justice, Freedom & Security, SParrow—studii politice undertook the effort of evaluating the European Union's policy regarding the criminal law protection of financial interests. The resulting assessment report herewith aims at:

• clarifying the need, the problem and the objectives of the policy;
• restructuring the actions that may have blocked the policy implementation; and
• identifying the stakeholders that could help achieve the policy objectives.

The evaluation effort started from the basic questions regarding the effectiveness of the current legal, institutional and procedural framework, the obstacles to implementation and the feasibility of the proposed solution regarding the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor for the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests. The evaluation compared the official policy and programmatic documents from the European Commission/OLAF with the relevant academic literature, and the corresponding opinions of watch-dog organizations involved in scrutinizing the EU budget and financial policies. An important effort was placed in matching each and every one of the reconstructed objectives with a corresponding stage in the public policy cycle, identifying the most likely actor/agent to succeed in the implementation, and the internal management implications of their actions.

The idea of establishing a European Public Prosecutor is almost 10 years old, and no real and/or serious steps were taken towards implementation. For the purposes of this assessment report, however, the policy program under evaluation was identified as “the creation of a criminal law level of intervention for the protection of the European Union's financial interests.” In the professional opinion of SParrow—studii politice, the program theory behind this policy appears reasonable: The need was correctly identified, in spite of the magnitude of the problem remaining “negligible” for some actors. The proposed solution for prescriptive regulation appears to have been offered somewhat hastily, but the analysis of the alternative options proved it the only one available.

Considering the reconstructed objectives of the policy, the potential priorities of the European Commission, and the possible preferences of the identified stakeholders, there is also hope for successful implementation. The programmatic documents already contain all the necessary and appropriate directions for successful implementation. Reframing and reprioritizing the central policy issue, however, are necessary for swift implementation, in partnership with a strong coalition of supporters, encompassing watch-dog organizations, law professionals/academics involved in the Corpus Juris project, as well as court/prosecution staff and police officers from across the Member States.

To conclude, the policy program for the creation of a criminal law level of intervention in protecting the European Union's financial interests is reasonable, feasible, ethical and fully appropriate. The delays in implementation had two distinct causes: On the one hand, the expected ratification of the Constitutional Treaty (briefly mentioned in the first section of this report) would have offered the perfect legal basis for full implementation. On the other hand, the institutional intricacies of the European Union's decision-making procedures (explained in the third and fourth sections of this report) may have led to a situation where implementation lost sight of the final policy objective.

1. Background

The European Union is an extremely complex decision-making mechanism, circulating tremendous amounts of money for the implementation of specific policies, as well as for the achievement of specific goals. Wherever decision-making has to do with allocation of funds, a risk also exists for money being wrongfully allocated (Lerche, 1997). Some decisions may be flawed due to errors or inaccurate information as to the motivation, aim, means, expected results, outcomes or goals. Others may be intentionally misdirected, from the outset, as a result of undue influence over decision-makers and/or as a result of the decision-makers' pursuing personal benefits running against the public interest bestowed in the positions wherewith they were entrusted (Pope, 2000). Misappropriations and frauds always plague any and all decision-making structures, so counter-balancing actions/measures for the protection of financial resources are always of concern. The EU protection mechanism has constantly undergone changes and improvements, but is it effective enough? What, if ever, should be done in order to increase this effectiveness?

The last two decades witnessed an unprecedented transformation of the European Union, many of its decision-making structures and procedures being adapted and/or progressing to a more supranational outlook, organization and way of functioning, when compared to the initial, rather intergovernmental, “contract” among Member States. Precisely during such times of transition and evolution, financial interests surface as one top concern on the agenda (McGregor, 1957): While preparing to accept 12 new Member States (primarily from Eastern Europe), EU decision-makers in the late 1990s could not and would not turn their eyes from the risks of enlargement into an area where systemic corruption and organized crime appeared to prosper. Some reforms had already been undertaken in the area of protecting the Community/Union's financial interests in the late 1960s (Regulation 729/70), late 1980s (the MacSharry reforms and the UCLAF—Unit for Fraud Prevention established at the Secretariat-General of the Commission), and early 1990s (Regulation 2988/95). Still, the European Union faced the shameful Cresson affair in 1998-99, after whistleblower Paul van Buitenen addressed the European Parliament with charges of fraud.

In essence, three levels of intervention characterize any system of protection regarding financial interests—political, administrative and criminal—whether the money belongs to a private business or membership organization, to a local or a regional government, a nation-state or an international organization (Friedman, 1975 and Evan, 1990). From a political perspective, budget contributors (especially if they are both tax-payers and electors) expect the selection and appointment mechanisms to ensure a safeguarding degree of integrity with respect to decision-makers (Beck, 1997 and Pope, 2000). From an administrative perspective, both decision-makers and budget contributors trust that collection and disbursement procedures, contracting guidelines and limitations, as well as control principles, ensure that funds only reach desirable objectives, by dependable contractors (Heady, 1984 and Pope, 2000). Last, but not least, the criminal law perspective presumes, on behalf of the same budget contributors, that decision-makers and/or administrative officers, if found guilty of any wrongdoings, account for their actions, repay the prejudice they may have caused, and suffer a corrective penalty (Feinberg & Gross, 1995 and Pope, 2000).

The van Buitenen/Cresson case pushed the limits of all three levels of intervention, at a very interesting juncture in the history of the European Union's policy-making regarding the protection of financial interests. The Treaty of Maastricht (1992-93) introduced the Justice & Home Affairs pillar of decision-making, and the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997-99) consolidated and clarified some of the earlier provisions. By 1993, the equivalent of some ECU 3.2 bln. was recovered from Italy and Spain, as a consequence of their failure to properly implement the milk quotas (Middelhoek et al., 1999a). By December 1995, the European Council adopted Regulation 2988/95 on the protection of financial interests, and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), replacing UCLAF, was subsequently established in April 1999, by Decision of the European Commission. Also, in 1995-96, the Corpus Juris project attempted to elicit the law professionals' view on the legal implications of introducing criminal law protection of financial interests at EU level (Delmas-Marty & Vervaele, 2000). At the plenary sitting of 14 January 1999, Parliament adopted a resolution on improving the financial management of the Commission. Hence, a Committee of (five) Independent Experts was established, with a specific mandate to issue a report on the allegations of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism.

The Committee of Independent Experts, chaired by Mr. André Middelhoek, issued its First Report on 15 March 1999. While the initial work of the Committee focused rather on the political level of intervention, the First Report also touched on some sensitive issues concerning the administrative level. A Second Report (issued 10 September 1999) tackled necessary reforms with the Commission, analyzing practices and proposing solutions for protection against irregularities, mismanagement and fraud. Touching on the sensitive issue of criminal law intervention, Recommendation 59 (based on the Court of Auditors' Special Report 8/98) suggested a three-staged process for the “introduction of a new legal framework for the prosecution and punishment of criminal offenses affecting the financial interests of the European Communities,” including the “appointment of an independent European Public Prosecutor” (Middelhoek et al., 1999b). Regulation 1073/99 ensued, laying down the procedural rules for investigations (casework) by OLAF. Ultimately, the Commission issued COM (2001) 715 final of 11 December 2001—the Green Paper on the criminal-law protection of the financial interests of the Community and the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor.

The 2001 Green Paper claimed that frauds and misappropriations depleted the Union's own resources (income) of some €150-200 mln./year. Frauds, mismanagement and other types of irregularities dislocated some €300-350 mln./year from the Union's budget (expenditures). About 50% of the missing funds resulted from intended (criminal) actions. Data from the 1999 Second Report of the Committee of Independent Experts suggested that only about ECU 111 mln. could be recovered from the missing funds of the (then) past 4 years (§3.10.8, in Middelhoek et al., 1999b). Thus, the recovery rate would stand rather poor, at only 5%/year, if one simply extrapolated such 6-8 years old data. Unfortunately, the 2003 Report from the Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control referred to a yearly prejudice of €1 bln. and increasing, solely attributable to fraud (Preamble, let. A, in Theato, 2003). Given that 80% of the funds are being spent in the Member States, most often in cross-border projects, detection and prevention of fraud is difficult, running into jurisdiction clashes, procedural incongruences, and subsequent delays.

In spite of accurate/exact (or, at least, converging) data not being available, the magnitude of the problem currently stands at less than 1% of the Union's yearly budget, the total amount of depleted funds (not only attributable to fraud) running just a little bit over €1 bln., compared to the €126.5 bln. total budget for 2007. Outstanding funds not yet recovered stand at €857 mln. only in agricultural guarantees, which represents only 11% of the total number of irregularities, and 16% of the total amount, respectively (2005 OLAF Annual Report, COM (2006) 378). While the overall number of cases increased by 55%, and the respective total amount increased by 52% in 2005, the absolute recovery figure remained at only 27% of the historical backlog. However, OLAF points out to a “steady downward trend in the total amount affected by irregularities,” as shown in Figure 1. Likewise, OLAF emphasizes an overall decrease of the number of “suspected fraud” cases, to less than 20% of the total, while the amounts involved vary around 35%, as illustrated in Figure 2. Some of the data, however, allow for alternative explanations, and cast doubt with regards to OLAF's capacity for an objective self-scrutiny.

Figure 1. Irregularities Communicated by Member States 1971-2005

Source: 2005 OLAF Annual Report (COM (2006) 378)

Figure 2. Level of Suspected Fraud in Total Irregularities 2000-06

Source: 2005 OLAF Annual Report (COM (2006) 378)

Thus, the objective of the Green Paper was to expand the scope of the Corpus Juris project, and explore the possibility of transforming and/or turning part of the activities regarding the protection of financial interests (the criminal law level of intervention) into a separate institution, called European Public Prosecutor, although the magnitude of the problem was rather related to the Cresson political crisis, rather than serious budgetary concerns. Indeed, some of OLAF's administrative investigations yield criminal evidence that should be used in criminal court proceedings, at Member State level, but the policy documents available, as yet, fail to ascertain the net costs and benefits of the proposed reform. The 2001 Green Paper is already too old, and no serious action ensued, except for a 24 February 2003 Report from the Committee on Budgetary Control of the European Parliament (Theato, 2003), and the additional Recommendation 13 of the Commission's evaluation of OLAF's activities (COM (2003) 154).

Still, a significant reaction came from the Intergovernmental Conference 2003-04, and the succeeding European Convention 2004, where Article III-274 §1 of the 29 October 2004 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe provides:

1. In order to combat crimes affecting the financial interests of the Union, a European law of the Council may establish a European Public Prosecutor's Office from Eurojust. The Council shall act unanimously after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

The following pages of this report are dedicated to understanding the motivation and possible impact of such a course of action—namely establishing a new, supranational level of criminal law intervention for the protection of the European Union's financial interests, in spite of the Constitutional Treaty (TECEU) being postponed by the French and Dutch referenda of May-June 2005.

2. Method & Scope

The European Commission/OLAF reports a rather rosy picture on frauds, begging the question whether protecting the financial interests is a real problem? Without a strong criminal law deterrent, and with only 290 people on the staff, OLAF remains just a self-sustainable administrative tool against fraud—the €43.2 mln. budget is roughly equivalent to the current recovery rate (OLAF 6th Activity Report, 2006). Effectiveness, however, is lagging behind, as the yearly loss of €1 bln., if/when recovered, would more than double the European Commission's amount of overseas development assistance to the current and upcoming candidate countries of the Balkans (see Table 1), accelerating their progress and preparedness for EU accession. Therefore, is the current institutional and procedural arrangement satisfactory and effective? If not, what are the obstacles to the immediate creation of the European Public Prosecutor for the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests? Or is the proposed solution for establishing a European Prosecutor simply defective?

Table 1. Top Donors of Overseas Development Assistance to non-EU Countries in Europe

Note: Aid recipients are Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia,

Note: Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.

Source: EU Donor Atlas 2006

This assessment report attempts to compare the official policy documents and data from the European Commission/OLAF with the relevant academic literature, and the corresponding opinions of watch-dog organizations scrutinizing the European Union's budget and financial policies. The collected data run over a longitudinal/diachronical perspective, comparing the current situation, surrounding the Union's 50th Anniversary, with the developments of 8-9 years ago, when the Cresson crisis reached its climax, and led to the resignation of the Santer Commission in 1999. The crux of this assessment report consists of the “ideal” review of the underlying needs and assumptions leading to the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests, as well as the reconstruction of the problems, objectives, alternative options and action plan that could or should be followed in implementation. (The review of the alternative solutions/options to policy implementation supplement the missing counterfactual data, unavailable in the absence of a fully implemented program.) An important effort was placed in matching each and every intermediary objective with a corresponding stage in the public policy cycle, identifying the most likely actor/agent to succeed, and the internal management implications of their actions.

The need to provide for a criminal law level of intervention in protecting the Union's financial interests was identified in mid- to late 1990s, and first formulated in the Court of Auditors' Special Report 8/98. From a public policy perspective, once a need is identified, the issue surfaces on the public agenda of decision-makers and/or institutions responsible for policy initiation, alternative solutions are explored, and a decision is made. Implementation of that decision ensues, as seen in Figure 3, with constant monitoring and/or periodical evaluation, such that corrections could be made via the feedback loop, if/when new needs were subsequently identified (Howlett & Ramesh, 2003). In the case of the European Public Prosecutor, the European Parliament assumed the role of policy initiation, when the Committee of Independent Experts was commissioned. However, the policy initiator should have been the European Commission; moreover, the “famous” Recommendation 59 calls directly for adopting new legislation, in spite of no evidence that alternative solutions may have been explored.

But policy cycles overlap and intertwine, creating either vicious circles or virtuous spirals. The Parliament deciding to commission a report from a group of independent experts, for the purpose of scrutinizing frauds and misappropriations at the Commission, is an instance of policy evaluation. The Middelhoek Committee closed the feedback loop on the Parliament's oversight role on the Commission and Budget, by identifying a new, separate need to be considered—criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests. The agenda was already set for the Commission, and the 2001 Green Paper confirms the Commission's role as policy initiator, but on a different cycle. Apparently, the only public policy “mistake” at this stage lies with how the issue was framed: In reviewing the history of draft Treaty amendments dating as far back as 1976, the Commission's 2001 Green Paper asked for opinions on how best to regulate the creation of the European Public Prosecutor, instead of exploring what other options might have been available for increased/improved cooperation or coordination among EU institutions and Member States in administrative and judicial investigations purporting to protect the Union's financial interests.

Figure 3. The Public Policy Cycle

Adapted from Howlett & Ramesh, 2003

While considering this initial flaw in the policy cycle is not sufficient for assessing that the “program” for establishing the European Public Prosecutor were intrinsically defective, one should still examine the conceptualization and design of the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests—“how reasonable, feasible, ethical, and otherwise appropriate it is?” (Rossi, Lipsey & Freeman, 2004). When looking at OLAF's own reports of 2005, the need for criminal law protection is not very convincing. When comparing the magnitude of the problem (less than 1% of the Union's budget) with other lines of policy implementation at EU level (Table 1), the contrast is quite sharp, and the need stringent. Therefore, the core section of this report ponders over the program's relation to various perspectives on the magnitude of the problem, in order to detect its reasonability. Questions related to feasibility will be dealt in the section on obstacles to implementation, while some ethical considerations will accompany the discussion of the overall findings, in the section on recommendations.

3. Program Theory Assessment

The idea of establishing a European Public Prosecutor is almost 10 years old, and no real and/or serious steps were taken towards implementation. Since the idea made its way on the public agenda, and is currently blocked at the second step of the public policy cycle, it will be further treated as a “program” of the European Union, for the remainder of this report. In order to assess whether such a program is reasonable, this section of the report will question the entire logic and underlying assumptions behind the original idea, as only a credible program theory may yield good results in implementation (Rossi, Lipsey & Freeman, 2004). Therefore, this section will review the basic assumption concerning the need for the protection of financial interests, will focus on the implications concerning the criminal law level of intervention, and will assess the interplay of specific problems to be solved with the corresponding objectives for policy initiation and/or implementation.

Figure 4. Illustration of General System Theory in a Regular Factory

Adapted from Bertalanffy, 1968 and Kotler, 2005

From a rationalist systems' theory perspective, the European Union should be interested in maximizing the positive output at the lowest possible cost. Looking at a factory, for analogy and simplification, two categories of inputs may be discerned—the “fixed” input refers to capital resources (money, machinery, fuels), while the “variable” input refers to rolling resources (information, workforce, raw materials). Depending on internal, specific production processes, the factory yields two distinct categories of output—the “positive” outputs represent useful/marketable products, whereas the “negative” outputs incorporate all sorts of exhaust (defective products, leaks, waste). Management is concerned with three distinct features of the factory's internal and external feedback loops (see Figure 4). Minimizing the negative outputs refers to increasing the internal efficiency of the system, meeting the expectations of clients refers to increasing the quality of the positive outputs, whereas improving the versatility of the clients' use of their products refers to improving the overall impact of the system on the environment.

Using a similar explanatory model on the European Union, the fixed input consists of the budget income (money), whereas the negative output refers primarily to misplaced or misallocated funds, as a result of flawed decision-making. The variable input consists, inevitably, of information (including the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the workforce), while the positive outcome refers to decisions made at various levels of competence, from the European Council, Parliament and Commission, all the way down to the smallest subcontractor in a EU-funded project. The managers of this system have intertwining, different competences—the European Council and Parliament are primarily in charge of decision-making, responsible for quality and overall impact, while the Commission seems to be in charge of strictly internal management, taking care of efficiency (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Illustration of General System Theory in the European Union

Incorporates concepts from Rossi, Lipsey & Freeman, 2004

Thus, the role of the European Commission is circumscribed to reducing the levels of exhaust/negative outputs, protecting the Union's financial interests. A complementary perspective places very clearly the political burden of intervention in protecting financial interests with the Council and the Parliament, while the Commission is solely responsible for the administrative level of intervention. If the negative output focused solely on fraud (as suggested in Figure 5), the current institutional structures of the European Union are unable to point at only one responsible body, such as the planned/expected European Public Prosecutor. Thus, the basic assumption concerning the need for a criminal law level of intervention in the protection of the Union's financial interests is valid and logical (see Table 2). However, several other instruments may be, and are being, used for preventing EU funds from being defrauded and/or misappropriated, as apparent from Table 3. Therefore, the next step of this assessment is to look at the problems related to this need for criminal law protection.

Table 2. Elements of Need Assessment for the Protection of the Union's Financial Interests

Evaluation Issues		Current Findings
Nature & Magnitude		- about €1 bln./year loss to fraud and misappropriations
Population in Need		- over 450 mln. EU citizens from the 27 Member States
Needs of Population		- lower taxes and increased efficiency, quality & impact of EU decisions
Services Needed		- political, administrative & criminal law protection of financial interests
Service Characteristics		- permanent & effective protection, prevention, detection & investigation - recovery of ~€5.5 bln. outstanding, historical backlog of depleted funds
Delivery Arrangements		- improved & increased cooperation among Member States and/with EU - establishment of criminal law protection capacity (European Prosecutor)

Adapted from Rossi, Lipsey & Freeman, 2004

Already visible from the synthetic review in Tables 2 and 3, several categories of stakeholders may have different interests, perspectives and opinions with respect to the need identified above. The European Commission would gladly give up its role of policy initiation with respect to the European Public Prosecutor, but will have to retain the role of policy implementation. OLAF would like to see the European Prosecutor established, as such a course of events would relieve them of some 20-40% of the workload. COCOLAF, the European Commission's Advisory committee for the coordination of fraud prevention, would insist on the creation of the European Prosecutor, as such course of action would conclude their role in policy formulation. In terms of decision-making, the European Parliament would prefer to get more involved than just in a consent procedure (as provided in the proposed TECEU Article III-274 §1), aspiring to codecision on this
matter, precisely because of the original initiative to commission the 1999 Reports
from the Committee of Independent Experts.

Table 3. Inventory of Instruments for the Protection of the Union's Financial Interests

Sources: europa.eu website, 2007 and Pascal et al., 2004

The situation gets complicated with the European Council and the Member States, primarily because of the various methods of decision-making and coordination that exist at this level. Although, in theory, they serve the same goals within the mechanisms of the European Union, these actors are of an intergovernmental nature, and thus cautious about supranational developments intrinsic to the first category of stakeholders. The Economic & Financial (ECOFIN) Council is more concerned with frauds regarding the Union's own resources (income), and places the burden of protection with the Member States. The Justice & Home Affairs (JHA) Council is more concerned with the procedural law and institutional cooperation circumscribed to the detection, investigation and apprehension of perpetrators, leaving the matter to the hands of the national police, prosecution and court systems of the Member States. In their turn, the 27 individual Member States would rather concentrate on retaining as much sovereignty as possible, although they would also be interested in maintaining lower levels of financial contributions to the EU budget. Not in the least, Member States consider the legal framework pursuant to the 1997-99 Treaty of Amsterdam as sufficient for the effective protection against organized crime, whether it be related to the financial interests of the Union or anything else.

Citizens, by contrast, would rather have the European Union deal with protection against both organized crime and financial fraud, based on their perception that EU policies and/or actions would be more effective—43% trust the EU is better equipped to solve the problem, 81% are in favor of increased cooperation/coordination at EU level (Special Eurobarometer 264). Actually, 86% of EU citizens “believe [. . .] there should be more decision-making at EU level regarding the fight against organized crime” (Special Eurobarometer 266). Law professionals/academics, police officers and court personnel fall in the same category of stakeholders, and even share some of the views harbored by citizens at large. However, these professionals have a broader and deeper understanding of both the EU decision-making mechanisms, and the difficulties/barriers to increased or improved cooperation. Probably the strongest supporters of the criminal law level of intervention for the protection of the Union's financial interests consists of watch-dog, non-governmental, organizations that prefer to concentrate their efforts on only one agency or institution, rather than 27 national correspondents.

A separate category of stakeholders groups, somewhat counter-intuitively, the organized crime and the losers of EU funds. Organized crime would, of course, protect the status quo, as the current situation allows them to circumvent detection and control, thus prospering off the indecisiveness and incapacity of EU policies to adequately address the problem of protecting financial interests. The “have-not” organizations/contractors, however, lack the capacity to organize themselves across Member States, and can do little to support the adoption of more effective solutions. They are rather stuck at the stage of simply complaining about the negative effects of the current situation on their business, thus unwillingly conserving the status quo. Table 4 presents a synthetic review of the

	Table 4 - continued

stakeholders' situations and concerns, allowing for an in-depth analysis of the problems related to the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests, as well as an all-encompassing perspective over the causal relations and implications of the stakeholders' attitudes towards the identified need.

The stakeholder analysis brings a new light on the matter of the criminal protection of the Union's financial interests, in the sense that, while the needs remains high on the agenda, the core problem is one rather related to frustration—competing or incomplete investigations result in delaying recovery of funds, in dilatory actions diminishing the value of recoverable assets, and in impunity for perpetrators. Four distinct threads of problems and causal relations may be identified, as presented in Figure 6. The shortest, most compact thread (the yellow boxes in Figure 6) relates to the European Union's lack of common administrative rules across Member States, an issue identified as the “inexistent acquis communautaire in the area of public administration” (Pascal et al., 2004). From this perspective, core difficulties arise in the area of administrative-judicial cooperation, with unwanted effects on the other three threads of problems. The most worrisome problem, however, is that OLAF is sometimes incapable of pursuing even administrative detection and/or investigation, due to uncertainties in the legal text of the Treaty.

A parallel thread, just as firmly embedded in the fabric of the European Union, relates to the insufficient legal basis to be found in the current Treaty of Nice (the green boxes in Figure 6). Member States and intergovernmental mechanisms of decision-making are responsible for delaying the adoption of the 2004 Constitutional Treaty (TECEU), thus postponing the possibility to act upon provisions in Article III-274, and hindering OLAF in its regular activity. (The effects of the current situation, at the top of the problem tree in Figure 6, are depicted in the same shade of green, precisely because they may simply vanish once TECEU gets ratified.) Another fairly straightforward, and related, thread of problems concerns the current make-up of the European Union's decision-making structures—namely, the three distinct pillars convened through the Treaty of Maastricht (1992-93). Thus, matters concerning the criminal law protection of the financial interests purport directly to the budget, under the Community pillar, but pursue a decision-making procedure from the Justice & Home Affairs pillar, where the ratification procedure for specific conventions by Member States may prove sometimes harder than that needed for the Constitutional Treaty.

The most consistent thread of problems (depicted in turquoise in Figure 6) relates to the tremendous (amount of) differences among the criminal law systems of the Member States. Hence, obstacles and barriers to communication and cooperation prevent the possibility of fructifying administrative evidence in criminal court proceedings, clashes of national jurisdiction impede investigations, and the overall system allows organized crime to make the best out of the situation. In such a situation, then, where non-implementation of EU policies, rules and instruments ultimately “undermines both the substance [. . .] and confidence in the process of integration” (Nicolaides & Oberg, 2006), the European Commission must step in and offer a novel perspective on the problem at hand.
However, in matters related to the protection of the financial interests, the European Commission, COCOLAF and OLAF must be treated as one single body:

Table 5. Capacity Assessment of Commission/(COC)OLAF in Protecting Financial Interests

Elements		Issues
External aspects of the Commission
external factors		- legal/institutional/procedural limitations - still insignificant magnitude of the problem
linkages & relationships		- busy agenda & other priorities - limited role (not an agenda setter)
views of clients/users		- Parliament satisfied with performance, as problem is still insignificant - Member States & Council cautious about supranational spillovers
Internal aspects of the Commission
management		- satisfactory solutions within limited framework
organization		- satisfactory solutions within limited framework
policy making		- not a priority—alternative solution proposed in TECEU

Adapted from Project Cycle Management, 2004

The current assessment of the program theory beneath the idea of establishing a European Public Prosecutor for the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests must also look at the European Commission's capacity to act as policy initiator, and then identify specific objectives to pursue. Up to this point of the assessment, the need appears valid, and the proposed solution logical. However, the stakeholder analysis yielded a problem tree that encompasses issues beyond the scope of the Commission's role and/or mandate. Not surprisingly, the capacity assessment of the European Commission (including the Advisory Committee and OLAF) points out to very limited incentives for action (see Table 5). Thus, based on the limited capacity and motivation of the European Commission, a simplified problem tree is presented in Figure 7, focusing on issues that remain within the reach of the Commission's activities.

As seen in the section regarding the scope of this assessment report, the European Commission somewhat blocked the issue on the policy cycle, at the point of policy formulation. In addition, the policy agenda on the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests was initiated from the European Parliament, with no evidence about the exploration of alternative solutions. Actually, none of the available policy documents discusses the objectives of the criminal law intervention in protecting the financial interests of the European Union, and consequently fail to elaborate on what other options might be available. The objectives of creating an independent European Prosecutor, with the adjacent legislation concerning substantive and procedural provisions for criminal and administrative-judicial cooperation, represents a form of prescriptive regulation seen as the last resort in attempting to solve a problem (Principles of Good Regulation, 2003).

Therefore, starting from the reconstructed objectives (see Figure 8) that correspond to the problems where the European Commission (including the Advisory Committee and OLAF) may intervene, Table 6 reviews the available alternative solutions. Note that the reconstructed objectives correspond to the three feedback loops in Figure 5:

• objective 1, aiming to create the legal and institutional framework for the effective protection of financial interests, relates primarily to the overall impact of the European Union on the surrounding environment;
• objectives 2 and 3, as well as 7, related to the legal framework on administrative-judicial cooperation, to the institutional capacity for crime prevention, and to the actual creation of the European Prosecutor, respectively, follow very closely the satisfaction of EU citizens with the quality of EU governance;
• objectives 4, 5 and 6, concerning various types of institutions, procedures and legal provisions, respectively, are strictly internal management tools, aiming to improve the efficiency of the internal process.

By the same token, the reconstructed objectives appear to follow the rule of being short, measurable, adequate and realistic, but fail to be properly SMART, since the capacity assessment in Table 5 clearly shows they are not timely: As it stands, the European Commission still has no incentive to act upon any of these objectives in the near future. In contrast, the review of the alternative solutions in Table 6 fully supports the initial option for prescriptive regulation, taking into account most of the inconveniences already listed in this report.

Some noteworthy additions to be explained represent either market tools, or various types of self-regulation available in the European Union: The business/private sector has always been at the forefront of protecting the financial interests of shareholders, and thus external financial audits were the first instrument that was created in order to assure investors that internal management allowed for no waste or misappropriation of their money. Public institutions soon followed suit, during the 1970s, in requiring that bidders for public contracts provide proof of independent financial audit, as an administrative measure to ensure the integrity and dependability of their contractors (Olaya, 2003). Similarly, the suite of quality management standards promoted under the ISO brand is a market tool that was incorporated into public contracting requirements during the 1990s, and spurred the subsequent adoption of CAF—the Common Assessment Framework throughout public administrations in the Member States.

As regards the objective on procedural law, the Corpus Juris project of 1995-96 was specifically designed to elicit, from law professionals/academics on the market, a set of guiding principles for Member States' cooperation in relation to the protection of the Union's financial interests. Corpus Juris then continued as a project financed by UCLAF/OLAF, and is currently placed under the umbrella of the European Law Academy—ERA in Trier (Delmas-Marty & Vervaele, 2000 ), but remains a market instrument, without legally binding and/or directly applicable effects. Blacklisting of defaulting contractors is a mixed administrative measure (more of a market inhibitor, or negative incentive), combining elements of procedural law and strictly private, contract law. The practice is quite common in the World Bank system, but was only recently considered by the EU—the January 2006 joint recommendations of OLAF and Transparency International are still under consideration by the appropriate decision-makers at the Commission.

The procedures of the Integrated administrative and control system (IACS) and those of the Investigation and Disciplinary Office (IDOC), as well as those of the Internal Audit Service (IAS) are elements of self-regulation within the Commission (and/or other EU institutions, such as the Code of Good Administrative Behavior, promoted by the European Ombudsman). These reflect on the permanent preoccupation of the Union's management with the internal process. All other self-regulatory options presented in Table 6 concern measures available to the Member States, in their direct relations, most often under the Justice & Home Affairs (or third) pillar of decision-making. However, as pointed earlier, many of the JHA instruments face tremendous obstacles to ratification, thus remaining ineffective “concept” papers, albeit filled with good intentions.

With the notable reservation that elements of procedural law might not be adopted at EU level, in a “one size fits all” set of norms, Table 6 conveys the message that objectives 1-7 from Figure 8 are reasonable, logical and valid (although not timely). The program theory regarding the creation of a criminal law level of intervention in protecting the Union's financial interests appears reasonable—the need was correctly identified, in spite of the magnitude of the problem remaining “negligible” for some actors. The proposed solution for prescriptive regulation appears to have been offered somewhat hastily, but the analysis of the alternative options proved it the only one available. Moreover, a clearer opinion can be formulated now that, in spite of the “less than 1% a year” magnitude of the problem, the current institutional and procedural arrangement is neither satisfactory, nor effective, since the current backlog amounts to almost 6% of the yearly budget, and rising. Yet, the capacity assessment of the European Commission provides little hope for the feasibility of the program—the following section of this assessment report will evaluate obstacles to implementation, inquiring what could/should be done in order to achieve the identified objectives.

4. Implementation Priorities Assessment

As already pointed out, the role, competency and capacity of the European Commission are limited, when discussing the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests (see Table 4 and Figure 8). However, this assessment report would be utterly incomplete in simply acknowledging the situation, without providing a clear path for the future. After all, since the “program” related to the creation of a criminal law level of intervention is deemed logical and reasonable, the assessment should also look into feasibility. This section of the report starts from the reconstructed objectives in Figure 8, considers the various roles of EU institutions on the public policy cycle, and provides a management perspective on a possible action plan. Considering the potential priorities of the European Commission, and reviewing the possible preferences of the identified stakeholders, this section of the report attempts to open a new horizon for policy implementation.

Figure 8 represents a static depiction of causal relations among elements of several, intertwining policies. Such an objective tree may be useful for understanding the overall dependencies that affect the environment where policy actors must operate. From a policy implementation perspective, however, these elements must be placed in a managerial relation to the central objective 1—creation of the legal and institutional framework for the effective protection of financial interests. Thus, in order to plan actions effectively, and ensure that the objective can be achieved, Table 7 depicts more dynamically the inter-relations and inter-dependencies among the 7 objectives reconstructed in the previous section. The basic assumptions in the logical framework already serve to forecast some of the obstacles to implementation, as they relate back to the problematic elements in the stakeholder analysis:

For instance, there is little evidence to support the idea that the mere creation of the European Public Prosecutor would provide a sufficiently deterring signal to organized crime. As pointed earlier, 86% of the European citizens expect more decision-making in the area of fighting organized crime, but quite obviously perpetrators are not amongst them. Consequently, only the ultimate adoption of an integrated, centralized system of


crime prevention would become effective and self-sustainable, providing the currently desired deterrence. (Indeed, Friedman (1975) and Evan (1990) argued that centralized prosecution has proved, historically, more effective than at local and/or regional level.) In order for such a thing to actually happen, nonetheless, Member States would have to come to terms with either one of the outstanding issues on the agenda: Either they find a way to ratify the existing cooperation instruments available under the Justice & Home Affairs pillar of the Union, or they find a way to ratify the Constitutional Treaty, doing away with the pillars structure, altogether. These three (“killer”) assumptions of Table 7, in and of themselves, whether standing alone or as a full set, may prove the entire effort either futile or successful.

Still, solutions may exist under the current Treaty of Nice (2000), for the successful implementation of the program at hand, under the Community pillar, circumventing the “killer” assumptions identified above. Table 7, however, fails to explain the exact role of the EU institutions. The stakeholder analysis in Table 4 and the capacity assessment of the European Commission in Table 5 pointed out to the Commission's preference with respect to policy implementation. Under these circumstances, the separation of roles and policy interventions from Table 8 helps identify a possible roadmap for the implementation of the central objective—the creation of the legal and institutional framework for the effective protection of financial interests. The causal relations from the original objective tree (Figure 8), noted with capital letters, are more visible (and logical) now, in the nested logframes of Table 8. Notably, the Commission holds on to the role of process manager, being responsible primarily for policy implementation and policy evaluation, whereas the Advisory Committee—COCOLAF sticks to policy formulation, and the European Council and Parliament fulfill their decision-making roles.

The causal relations in the nested logframes of Table 8 also emphasize that the stepping stone for the entire effort of creating an effective criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests lies with, and start with, the accomplishment of objective 7—the creation of the European Public Prosecutor. From this new perspective, the “famous” Recommendation 59 in the Second Report of the 1999 Middelhoek Committee appears surprisingly appropriate. Nevertheless, when faced with 7 objectives placed in 2 inter-locking logframes, a versed process manager, such as the European Commission, would need to discriminate priorities for future action. Therefore, objectives 1 to 7 are plotted in Table 9 along two dimensions—urgent vs. important, and necessary vs. desirable. At first glance, none of the objectives fall in the high priority square—both urgent and necessary.

If a crisis similar to the 1998-99 Cresson case were to transpire in the media, objective 7 regarding the creation of the European public Prosecutor would jump one level up, becoming an urgent matter. Likewise, if the overall prejudice to the Union's budget increased, from the current yearly 1% (or 6% total, considering the backlog), to a staggering 10%, objective 3 regarding institutional capacity for crime prevention would become an immediate priority. Similarly, a Cresson-type crisis would bring objective 6 regarding investigation capacities from the merely desirable to the strictly necessary box, eliciting priority action. Table 10 places the order of priorities in time, starting from the logical stepping stone identified above, but note that any objective's moving one box closer to the high priority square is a positive development, that can trigger a snowball effect towards the final implementation of the policy at hand—the logical stepping stone need not coincide with the chronological trigger.

Table 10. Action-Plan Priorities for the Protection of Financial Interests

While the idea to collect 1 million signatures was not yet explored by the watch-dog organizations as a possibility to catalyze the process, the Commission would still have to face a hostile environment with the Member States and the JHA Council and/or little incentives to push a legislative initiative towards the European Council and Parliament. From the Commission's perspective, because of the 2001 Green Paper and its subsequent position in the 2004 European Convention, the only internally driven option for starting the legislative process would have to be the creation of the European Public Prosecutor (objective 7). The positions of key stakeholders on this particular issue (or any other, in fact) become of the utmost importance, if the European Commission were to take any action. Table 11 estimates the supportive (ü), equivocal (ó) or opposing (û) positions of the already identified stakeholders, referring back to the findings of Table 4, and considering the priorities in Table 10.

Table 11. Stakeholder Preferences on the European Commission's Action Priorities

Adapted from Pedler, 2006

Obviously, the law professionals/academics working on the Corpus Juris, the watch-dog organizations, OLAF and the Advisory Committee—COCOLAF are the greatest, unconditional supporters of the entire policy, program and action plan, whereas the full opposition of the organized crime is understandable. The position of court and police professionals is somewhat surprising, in the sense that their total support, across the full board of priority actions, comes to odds with the position of their own national governments. Not surprisingly, the Commission seems reluctant to act, while the JHA and ECOFIN Councils have quite parallel or indifferent, if not almost conflicting, agendas. The absolute surprise in the estimations of Table 11 comes with the overall supportive attitude (almost consensual) to the priority action on objective 3—the urgent improvement of the institutional capacity for crime prevention.

With 86% support from the European citizens, watch-dog organizations should have no problems collecting 1 million signatures in favor of a legislative initiative drafted by the law professionals/academics involved in the Corpus Juris project. If necessary, the 1 million signatures could be easily provided by the court and police professionals from across the Member States, thus creating a synergy/coalition of all the policy supporters, and putting enough pressure on the European Commission, Council and Parliament to adopt legislation. Referring back to Tables 9 and 10, the snowball effect is invincible, as it would require rapid achievement of all subsequent objectives 4 through 7. As pointed out in the second section of this report, herewith confirmed, the 2001 Green Paper of the European Commission should have framed the issue differently.

Finally, Howlett & Ramesh (2003) would caution this coalition to present their draft legislative proposal to the European Commission, Council and Parliament in anticipation of a major crisis regarding OLAF's limited effectiveness, rather than in reaction to the 2001 Green Paper. Otherwise, Member States would be more likely to dispute the European Commission's “right” to impose a new supranational mechanism for the protection of the financial interests (falling back to position-based negotiations), as long as classical cooperation instruments under Justice & Home Affairs are not yet ratified. Thus, the absolute imperative for the coalition is to place their proposal under the Community pillar of decision-making, in direct relation to the European Union's budget, where concertation (see Table 12) of efforts from all responsible actors (both EU institutions and Member States) is more likely to be achieved.

Table 12. Policy Styles in the European Commission's Relation with the Member States

		Dominant Approach to Problem-Solving
	Anticipatory		Reactive
Relationship between Commission and Member States	Consensus	Rationalist Consensus		Interest-Based Negotiation
Imposition	Concertation		Position-Based Negotiation

Adapted from Richardson, Gustafsson & Jordan, 1982

5. Recommendations & Conclusions

Reframing the issue, in such a way that the establishment of the European Prosecutor for the criminal law protection of the Union's financial interests (objective 7) is no longer salient, willingly “losing face” to the institutional capacity for crime prevention (objective 3), is a technique often used by lobbyists (Pedler, 2006). In the case of the policy issue at hand, considering the unpermissive environment described in the earlier sections of this report, it is also an action consistent with the “famous” Recommendation 59 of the Middelhoek Committee. The Independent Experts called, in 1999, for a three-staged approach to the creation of the European Public Prosecutor—stage 2 of that plan referred to the “Creation in each Member State of a national Prosecution Office for European Offenses” (Middelhoek et al., 1999b). Given that some Member States (especially the 10 new-comers from Eastern Europe) already have such specialized prosecution offices (Zăbavă & Vrabie, 2005), along with the adjacent substantive and procedural criminal law adopted, completion of the 1999 “stage 2” is almost a reality.

The proposed legislation corresponding to the reconstructed objective 3 would then attempt to bring together the specialized prosecution offices of the Member States, in a cooperation mechanism similar to the originally intended stage 3 of 1999—a European Prosecution Office/Network, with delegated public prosecutors in the Member States, holding jurisdiction for all offenses affecting the financial interests of the European Union, via the specialized prosecution offices of stage 2 (Middelhoek et al., 1999b). Gradually, as the functionality and interoperability of this prosecution cooperation network would increase, as relations with OLAF's administrative investigations would eventually yield court decisions convicting criminals, stage 1—the creation, and even the appointment, of an independent European Public Prosecutor—would become unavoidable. The force-field analysis in Figure 9 confirms that, with the understandable exception of the organized crime (already visible from Table 11), all stakeholders would support such a course of events.

Finally, then, what is the European Commission supposed to do? A very simple SWOT analysis (see Table 12) points out to several options: As the Commission has the right to initiate legislation, but has no draft available, it would welcome a proposal from the coalition identified in Table 11. The law professionals/academics involved with the Corpus Juris project should only make sure that the proposal is firmly anchored in the Community pillar of decision-making, in order to circumvent potential competence conflicts with the JHA Council. A second reframing might also be in order, with no prejudice to ethical norms and/or values, as the ECOFIN Council might be more sensitive to comparative analyses on the magnitude of the problem: The current policy documents refer to losses amounting to less than 1% of the yearly budget, while a comparison to the level of overseas development assistance, for instance (as suggested in Table 1), could provide a more compelling motivation for change.

Table 13. SWOT Analysis on the Legislative Initiative for the Protection of Financial Interests

To conclude, the “program” for the creation of a criminal law level of intervention in protecting the European Union's financial interests is reasonable, feasible, ethical and fully appropriate. The need was correctly identified, and the programmatic documents (such as the 1999 Reports of the Middelhoek Committee) contain all the necessary and appropriate directions for successful implementation. The delays in implementation had two distinct causes—on the one hand, the expected ratification of the Constitutional Treaty (briefly mentioned in the first section of this report) would have offered the perfect legal basis for full implementation; on the other hand, the institutional intricacies of the European Union's decision-making procedures (explained in the third and fourth sections of this report) lost sight of the final objective.

From the latter perspective, this report recommends that the issue be reframed, in terms of policy formulation, such that more emphasis is placed on the institutional capacity for crime prevention, rather than on the mere creation of a new, supranational, institution—the European Public Prosecutor. While this assessment report acknowledges an “institutional misfit” with the European Commission, another recommendation concerns the “pressure for change” that would induce adjustment and/or transformation (Versluis, 2005): A coalition of watch-dog organizations, law professionals/academics involved in the Corpus Juris project, as well as court and police professionals from across the Member States, could and should present the European Commission, via OLAF, with a draft legislative proposal. Furthermore, that legislative proposal should consider the recommended reframing of the issue, in order to maximize its chances for adoption. Given the “natural” speed of the EU decision-making process, if such a proposal were presented to the European Commission during this spring 2007, the European Public Prosecutor could be properly established on the 10th anniversary of the Middelhoek Reports, and become fully operational in 2010.

Ultimately, this assessment report achieved all possible outcomes of an evaluation of program theory (Rossi, Lipsey & Freeman, 2004):

• reviewing the available policy and programmatic documents, this report clarified the need, the problem, the objectives and the possible actions to be taken towards successful implementation;
• clarifying the inter-relations and inter-dependencies among the reconstructed objectives, this report restructured/reframed those components that have initially blocked the successful implementation;
• reframing the contentious issues and reconsidering the stakeholders' attitudes on the policy objectives, this report identified the potential elements of a coalition that could drive the process towards the final achievement of the desired objective.

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