EU funds and EPPO cases

What counts as an offence against the EU's financial interests

Any conduct that damages the Union budget, whether on the expenditure side, meaning European funds obtained or used unlawfully, or on the revenue side, meaning VAT and customs duties. The category covers projects financed through the Recovery and Resilience Facility, structural and cohesion funds, agricultural subsidies, and cross border VAT fraud above the threshold set by the EPPO Regulation.

In Romanian law, the offences specific to EU funds are grouped in Section 4 of Law no. 78/2000, at art. 18¹ and following. They are distinct from the Criminal Code offences that cover national funds.

• Art. 18¹ (1): using or presenting false, inaccurate or incomplete documents or statements, where this results in unlawfully obtaining or retaining funds or assets from the EU budget. Two to seven years plus a ban on exercising certain rights. Paragraph (2) applies the same penalty to knowingly omitting required data.
• Art. 18²: changing the destination of EU funds or assets without complying with the law. One to five years plus the ban.
• Art. 18³: the same conduct on the revenue side, where the result is an unlawful reduction of the Union's budget resources. Two to seven years.
• Art. 18⁴: attempt is punishable.
• Art. 18⁵: negligent breach of duty by a director, administrator or person with decision or control powers in a company, where this allowed a subordinate to commit one of the above. Six months to three years, or a fine.

Where particularly serious consequences result, the statutory limits are increased by half.

A binding rule: one offence, not concurrent offences

This is the most important classification question in the field, and it was settled with binding effect by Decision no. 4/2016 of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, delivered on 4 April 2016 in an appeal in the interest of the law and published in Official Gazette no. 418 of 2 June 2016.

The Court held that unlawfully obtaining funds from the EU budget and, at the same time, from the national budget, through the use or presentation of false, inaccurate or incomplete documents, constitutes the single offence under art. 18¹ (1) of Law no. 78/2000, regardless of which criminal law is the more favourable one.

The practical consequence is direct: indictments that charge art. 18¹ concurrently with fraud or with unlawful obtaining of funds under art. 306 of the Criminal Code, on the basis that part of the financing was national co-funding, run contrary to that decision. A change of legal classification can be sought in the preliminary chamber or before the trial court.

Art. 306 and art. 307 of the Criminal Code remain applicable to national funds, where the Union budget is not involved.

EPPO or the Romanian anticorruption directorate

Since 2021 two authorities may claim the same case. The European Public Prosecutor's Office operates under Regulation (EU) 2017/1939, implemented in Romania by Law no. 6/2021. In parallel, art. 13 (2) of Ordinance no. 43/2002 assigns offences against the Union's financial interests to the National Anticorruption Directorate. In practice a case usually starts with a national structure and may then be taken over by the EPPO.

The thresholds that trigger EPPO competence

• VAT fraud falls to the EPPO where it involves at least two member states and the damage is at least EUR 10 million.
• Below EUR 10,000, the EPPO may still act where the offence has Union level repercussions requiring its involvement, or where it may have been committed by EU officials, agents or members of EU institutions.
• Otherwise the scope covers fraud on the expenditure and revenue sides of the EU budget, laundering of proceeds defrauded from the EU budget, active and passive corruption, misappropriation of funds, and participation in a criminal organisation whose principal activity affects the Union budget.

The right of evocation and the five day window

Where a Romanian prosecutor identifies elements that could trigger EPPO competence, they must inform the EPPO without delay, transmitting the description of the facts, the value of the damage caused or possible, the identity of those involved, the stage of the investigation and the evidence gathered.

From that moment until the EPPO decides, or until a five day period expires, the national investigating body may carry out urgent acts only. The EPPO may extend that period, by reasoned decision, by a maximum of five further days.

The practical consequence matters: any non urgent act carried out during that window can be challenged in the preliminary chamber. Verifying this timeline is one of the first things to check in any case with a European dimension.

Where the EPPO does exercise its right of evocation, the case is transferred by an order which, under art. 7 (2) of Law no. 6/2021, cannot be challenged by complaint under art. 336 and following of the Criminal Procedure Code. The parties are, however, informed in writing without delay.

Who the European Delegated Prosecutor is

Art. 4 of Law no. 6/2021 establishes an equivalence that changes how a case is handled. Wherever national law refers to the prosecutor or to the investigating body, the reference is also deemed to be made to the European Delegated Prosecutor. Wherever it refers to the hierarchically superior prosecutor, in EPPO cases this means the European Prosecutor or the Permanent Chamber.

A complaint against an act of the European Delegated Prosecutor therefore does not go to a Romanian chief prosecutor. Misdirecting it costs time limits that cannot be recovered.

If the EPPO steps back

Under art. 9 of Law no. 6/2021, where the EPPO decides not to exercise its competence, the national body takes the case back or refers it to the competent prosecutor's office. Evidence already gathered and acts already performed remain valid. There is no procedural reset, so the defence must be built as a single strategy regardless of which authority holds the file at a given moment.

Where EPPO cases are tried

Art. 20 of Law no. 6/2021 creates a special territorial jurisdiction. At first instance, only the tribunals of Bucharest, Cluj, Iași and Timiș hear these cases, with appeals going to the corresponding courts of appeal, unless the defendant's office brings the case before the High Court of Cassation and Justice. For a company based elsewhere in Romania, this means proceedings several hundred kilometres from where the facts occurred, which is a planning matter rather than a procedural curiosity.

Challenging a decision to close the case

A point confirmed in Romanian case law during 2026: a closure decision in an EPPO file is adopted by the Permanent Chamber at central level, on the proposal of the European Delegated Prosecutor. There is therefore no national hierarchically superior prosecutor to whom the preliminary complaint under art. 339 of the Criminal Procedure Code could be addressed.

The complaint goes directly to the preliminary chamber judge at the court competent under art. 20, and the investigation file is forwarded straight there. Filing through the ordinary route costs a time limit that cannot be recovered.

How the defence is built

• Separating administrative irregularity from criminal offence. An expenditure declared ineligible by the managing authority is not, in itself, a crime. Financial correction and criminal damage are distinct concepts, and conflating them underpins many indictments.
• Whether documents were genuinely false, inaccurate or incomplete within the meaning of art. 18¹ of Law no. 78/2000, and whether they actually caused the funds to be granted. This is a result offence, so loss and causation must be proved, not presumed.
• Whether a change in the use of funds under art. 18² was approved or notified in accordance with the financing contract.
• The legal classification itself, by reference to Decision no. 4/2016, where the prosecution charges concurrent offences.
• Compliance with the evocation procedure and the limitation to urgent acts.
• Precautionary measures, which in these cases typically freeze the beneficiary company's accounts and halt project implementation.
• Cross border evidence gathering and the procedural guarantees applicable to its transmission.

See also the pages on DNA proceedings, tax evasion and money laundering.

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This page is informational and reflects legislation in force as of 28 July 2026. It does not constitute legal advice. For your specific situation, please get in touch.