The questionable decision to exclude the competence of the EPPO for criminal offences in respect of national direct taxes could adversely affect its capacity to fight VAT fraud.

This article critically examines the extent to which the European Public Prosecutor’s Office can be claimed to constitute a prime example of supranational criminal law. The article observes that among policymakers and commentators, the Office appears to be a hallmark of the transformation of EU criminal law from an intergovernmental paradigm to a strong federal and supranational polity.

The advent of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has been broadly welcomed throughout the European legal community, including by legal entities operating in the single market and their advisors. Even so, considerable uncertainties remain for these economic actors on how the new enforcement regime will affect them. These uncertainties stem from the fact that the twenty-two jurisdictions in which the EPPO will operate have in some cases radically different approaches to issues such as the nature of and conditions for corporate criminal liability as well as the substantive and procedural framework governing corporate criminal investigations.