EU law provides for the protection of the EU’s financial interests, and thus harmonises definitions, jurisdictional rules, and sanctions to ensure a pan-European approach to protecting it.
For the European Commission, the failure to provide for such liability in Finnish law constitutes a violation Directive 2017/1371 on the fight against fraud to the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law.
Finland has now two months to respond to the Commission, who sent its reasoned opinion in June 2023; and must undertake to change national law, or otherwise be referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
For more on the Commission’s argument against Finland, see Case R(2021)2234 at the following link: https://lnkd.in/eApB3Hzb
Graham Butler