Multidisciplinary investigations into offences against the financial interests of the EU: a quest for an integrated enforcement concept

The present article focuses on the enforcement of the protection of the financial interests of the EU. This area is characterised by the parallel development of several sectoral administrative regimes which were only later extended by horizontal administrative enforcement powers of the Commission as well as national criminal law enforcement schemes. The combination of administrative and criminal law regimes does not build an integrated enforcement strategy, but rather a patchwork of different national and supranational powers raising great practical difficulties. The effective and uniform protection of the financial interests of the EU should be ensured by cooperation between the various national and European administrative and judicial authorities by way of ‘multidisciplinary investigations’. Multidisciplinary investigations refer to investigations that involve different types of authorities; i.e. national and supranational administrative authorities and national judicial authorities. This article shows the inherent limits and practical restraints of such multidisciplinary investigations and argues in favour of an integrated enforcement regime at EU level.