June 2 (SeeNews) - The European Commission said that it has sent a letter of formal notice to Bulgaria, urging the country to correctly transpose an EU directive on combatting fraud in order to protect the EU's financial interests through criminal law.
The Commission identified several issues in Bulgaria where national laws did not conform with the directive in the definition of certain criminal offences and the related criminal penalties, as well as the liability of legal persons for crimes committed for their benefit, the EU executive said in its June package of infringement decisions published on Thursday.
Bulgaria has two months to reply to the arguments raised by the Commission or the EU executive may decide to send a reasoned opinion.
Poland and Finland are the two other EU member states subject to infringement procedures for failing to transpose the so-called PIF directive adopted in 2017.
Under the directive, the definition of the EU’s financial interests covers infringements of common VAT systems linked to the territory of two or more member states for losses of at least 10 million euro ($10.8 million) while the definition of criminal offences covers active and passive fraud as well as the misuse of funds. Crimes against the EU budget are investigated and prosecuted by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
($ = 0.9287 euro)