August 22, 2026

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The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

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What the EU Taiwan Framework Would Actually Have to DoKorea Signed a Digital Trade Deal That Nobody Has RatifiedCritical Minerals in Mongolia Still Have to Cross Two BordersCan an Indonesia Trade Deal Survive Two Years of RatifyingCross-Border Data Orders Went Live Before the Plumbing DidPlatform Work Rules Take Effect in December and Few Are ReadyCan Europe’s Firefighting Fleet Keep Pace With EU WildfiresThe AI Act Deadline Passed on 2 August and Nothing BitWhy Construction Keeps Shrinking While Confidence ImprovesAccession Talks Stall Again and September 1 Is the TestBrussels Applied a Trade Deal It Cannot Yet RatifyAfrica’s Power Market Now Needs Money More Than BlueprintsLong-Term Budget Talks Enter Autumn Without a Council LineForeign Subsidies Enforcement Now Turns on a Dublin RaidWho Writes Europe’s Telecom Rules Once Copper DisappearsDisability Cards Exist on Paper and Nowhere Else Until 2028Losing Visa-Free Travel Now Takes a Thirty Percent SwingTwenty Flagship Actions Will Test Whether the Culture Compass WorksEurope’s Quality Jobs Act Now Rests on What Unions Do by SeptemberDoes a Three Euro Parcel Duty Change Anything About Cheap ImportsWhat the EU Taiwan Framework Would Actually Have to DoKorea Signed a Digital Trade Deal That Nobody Has RatifiedCritical Minerals in Mongolia Still Have to Cross Two BordersCan an Indonesia Trade Deal Survive Two Years of RatifyingCross-Border Data Orders Went Live Before the Plumbing DidPlatform Work Rules Take Effect in December and Few Are ReadyCan Europe’s Firefighting Fleet Keep Pace With EU WildfiresThe AI Act Deadline Passed on 2 August and Nothing BitWhy Construction Keeps Shrinking While Confidence ImprovesAccession Talks Stall Again and September 1 Is the TestBrussels Applied a Trade Deal It Cannot Yet RatifyAfrica’s Power Market Now Needs Money More Than BlueprintsLong-Term Budget Talks Enter Autumn Without a Council LineForeign Subsidies Enforcement Now Turns on a Dublin RaidWho Writes Europe’s Telecom Rules Once Copper DisappearsDisability Cards Exist on Paper and Nowhere Else Until 2028Losing Visa-Free Travel Now Takes a Thirty Percent SwingTwenty Flagship Actions Will Test Whether the Culture Compass WorksEurope’s Quality Jobs Act Now Rests on What Unions Do by SeptemberDoes a Three Euro Parcel Duty Change Anything About Cheap Imports
August 22, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

LATEST
What the EU Taiwan Framework Would Actually Have to DoKorea Signed a Digital Trade Deal That Nobody Has RatifiedCritical Minerals in Mongolia Still Have to Cross Two BordersCan an Indonesia Trade Deal Survive Two Years of RatifyingCross-Border Data Orders Went Live Before the Plumbing DidPlatform Work Rules Take Effect in December and Few Are ReadyCan Europe’s Firefighting Fleet Keep Pace With EU WildfiresThe AI Act Deadline Passed on 2 August and Nothing BitWhy Construction Keeps Shrinking While Confidence ImprovesAccession Talks Stall Again and September 1 Is the TestBrussels Applied a Trade Deal It Cannot Yet RatifyAfrica’s Power Market Now Needs Money More Than BlueprintsLong-Term Budget Talks Enter Autumn Without a Council LineForeign Subsidies Enforcement Now Turns on a Dublin RaidWho Writes Europe’s Telecom Rules Once Copper DisappearsDisability Cards Exist on Paper and Nowhere Else Until 2028Losing Visa-Free Travel Now Takes a Thirty Percent SwingTwenty Flagship Actions Will Test Whether the Culture Compass WorksEurope’s Quality Jobs Act Now Rests on What Unions Do by SeptemberDoes a Three Euro Parcel Duty Change Anything About Cheap ImportsWhat the EU Taiwan Framework Would Actually Have to DoKorea Signed a Digital Trade Deal That Nobody Has RatifiedCritical Minerals in Mongolia Still Have to Cross Two BordersCan an Indonesia Trade Deal Survive Two Years of RatifyingCross-Border Data Orders Went Live Before the Plumbing DidPlatform Work Rules Take Effect in December and Few Are ReadyCan Europe’s Firefighting Fleet Keep Pace With EU WildfiresThe AI Act Deadline Passed on 2 August and Nothing BitWhy Construction Keeps Shrinking While Confidence ImprovesAccession Talks Stall Again and September 1 Is the TestBrussels Applied a Trade Deal It Cannot Yet RatifyAfrica’s Power Market Now Needs Money More Than BlueprintsLong-Term Budget Talks Enter Autumn Without a Council LineForeign Subsidies Enforcement Now Turns on a Dublin RaidWho Writes Europe’s Telecom Rules Once Copper DisappearsDisability Cards Exist on Paper and Nowhere Else Until 2028Losing Visa-Free Travel Now Takes a Thirty Percent SwingTwenty Flagship Actions Will Test Whether the Culture Compass WorksEurope’s Quality Jobs Act Now Rests on What Unions Do by SeptemberDoes a Three Euro Parcel Duty Change Anything About Cheap Imports

Europe Rebuilds Its Anti-Fraud Architecture Before the Next Budget

Khabib Nurmagomedov
Senior Reporter, Anti-Fraud (OLAF)

Athens: Every national administration in the European Union, Greece’s included, may soon have to adopt a formal anti-fraud strategy and report on how it works. The European Commission floated that duty on 28 July, when it published its 2025 report on the protection of the Union’s financial interests.

The 37th edition of the report changes the question it asks. Earlier versions counted detected fraud. This one traces the whole anti-fraud cycle, from prevention and early detection through investigation, prosecution, recovery and reporting, and pulls figures from the Commission, member states, OLAF and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office into a single frame.

The headline numbers cut both ways. Authorities recorded 13,010 irregularities in 2025 worth 2.1 billion euros. Of those, 986 counted as fraudulent and involved 274.3 million euros. Reported irregularities fell 7.6% against 2024 while the money at stake rose 12.8%. Fewer cases, larger cases.

Recovery performs better than its reputation suggests. Where follow-up has finished, OLAF’s financial recommendations have produced recovery rates above 96% over the past decade. On the revenue side, 600 recommendations covering 4.18 billion euros led national customs authorities to establish 4.7 billion euros as recoverable and to collect 4.53 billion. On the expenditure side the picture thins out. Member states established only 76% of the amounts OLAF recommended, and under indirect management, where EU money flows through international organisations and agencies, that establishment rate drops to 42%.

Prevention accounts for much of the progress the Commission claims. OLAF and the Commission together stopped more than 658 million euros from being paid out over ten years through exclusion mechanisms, early detection and better information sharing. The report urges wider use of risk-scoring tools such as Arachne+, which flags suspicious patterns in procurement and grant data before money moves.

“Every euro lost to fraud is a euro stolen from European taxpayers,” said Piotr Serafin, the commissioner responsible for the budget and anti-fraud, presenting the report. His department wants mandatory national anti-fraud strategies, stronger reporting obligations for capitals and a review of the legislation governing the EU’s anti-fraud bodies before the next long-term budget starts.

The report is candid about what still fails. Investigations run long and grow complex. Administrative, investigative and judicial authorities coordinate poorly. Once a case enters court, information stops flowing back to Brussels, so the Commission often cannot say whether a recommendation ended in a conviction or a shrug. The most common fraud pattern remains mundane, namely falsified invoices and fabricated eligibility documents, while the most common non-fraudulent irregularities are customs misdeclaration and procurement breaches in cohesion spending.

A Commission communication due later in 2026 will propose how OLAF, the EPPO and national prosecutors should divide the work, and legislative proposals may follow. Sceptics in Parliament note that mandatory strategies produce documents rather than recoveries, and that the gap between money recommended and money established, not the absence of paperwork, explains why some fraud never gets repaid. The next report will show whether the new indicators measure that gap or merely describe it.

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