01-08-2025
EU's top prosecutor slams Bucharest for failing to report VAT fraud
BUCHAREST – European Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruța Kovesi has criticised Romanian authorities for failing to properly detect and report VAT fraud, despite the country having the highest VAT collection gap in the EU.
According to the latest European Commission report, Romania's VAT shortfall stands at 30.6%, five times higher than the EU average of 6%.
"Over 90% of this can only be explained by fraud. Unfortunately, the detection and reporting of such crimes - at least to the European Public Prosecutor's Office - remains extremely low," Kovesi, the former head of Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), told local newspaper Libertatea in an interview.
In 2024, out of nearly 400 EPPO cases in Romania, only 12 involved VAT fraud, said Kovesi. Of those, 'only three or four' were reported by the national tax authority ANAF, while the rest came from other EU member states, she added.
'There are only two explanations: either they don't want to find out, or it's bad faith… There's no other explanation," Kovesi said.
The EU's top prosecutor also warned that international mafias are exploiting these enforcement gaps. "Romania is fertile ground not only for the Italian mafia, but also for the Chinese mafia," she said, describing the trend of VAT fraud as a "worrying phenomenon" across Europe.
'Organised groups and mafias are no longer national, they are highly complex, operating both inside and outside the European Union," she said. "If one country starts to crack them down, they simply move to a place where no one bothers them."
(de)
