NextGenerationEU - Law Enforcement Forum

Yesterday, Europol's Executive Director, Catherine De Bolle, and Vittorio Rizzi, Deputy Director-General of Public Security in Italy, co-chaired the second NextGenerationEU - Law Enforcement Forum at Europol's headquarters in The Hague. 

The forum targets organised crime threats against the NextGenerationEU recovery fund. Representatives from EU Member States, the European Commission, the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), Eurojust, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL), and the Recovery and Resilience Task Force attended the forum.

The forum had an operational approach, focusing on prevention and enforcement while maintaining and stepping up cooperation among the EU Member States and relevant EU bodies and agencies. Special attention was paid to the 'green transition' and the 'digital transformation' elements of the recovery plan, given the scope of NextGenerationEU funds distributed in these two key areas. Europol also presented its operational work that has taken place since September 2021 under Operation Sentinel.

NextGenerationEU

NextGenerationEU is the European Union's EUR 806.9 billion temporary recovery instrument to help repair the immediate economic and social damage brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, the NextGenerationEU funds are progressively allocated to the European Union Member States.  

Operation Sentinel

In October 2021, Europol launched Operation Sentinel to draw an overall risk map of the relevant emerging threats to the NextGenerationEU Recovery and Resilience Facility allocation. The 12-month operation aims to map vulnerabilities inherent to the national allocation systems and identify the fraud schemes used to target the NextGenerationEU fund. 

First NextGenerationEU - Law Enforcement Forum

The first meeting of the NextGenerationEU - Law Enforcement Forum was held in Rome in September 2021. Attending justice and law enforcement institutions agreed that any threat to the European Recovery Funds equates to hindering the financial well-being of the European Union.