Recital 5

Council Regulation (EU) 2026/1743 of 10 July 2026 amending Regulation (EU) No 904/2010 on administrative cooperation and combating fraud in the field of value added tax as regards access by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the European Anti-Fraud Office to value added tax information at Union level · European Union

(5) Pursuant to Article 43(1) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1939, European Delegated Prosecutors are to be able to obtain any relevant information stored in national criminal investigation and law enforcement databases, as well as other relevant registers of public authorities, under the same conditions as those that apply under national law in similar cases. Pursuant to Article 43(2) of that Regulation, the EPPO is also to be able to obtain any relevant information falling within its competence that is stored in databases and registers of the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union. Cross-border VAT fraud, by definition, involves several Member States, and access at Member State level to relevant information stored in national databases might, in certain cases, not be sufficient for the EPPO to combat VAT fraud at Union level. Therefore, without prejudice to Article 43 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1939 and in order to ensure that the EPPO has access to relevant information at Union level in a timely manner, performs its regulatory mandate and fights against fraud at Union level, it is important to set out the rules under which the EPPO should have access to relevant VAT information at Union level from the relevant databases and registers of competent authorities in the Member States responsible for the application of the laws on VAT. For the same reason, it is important to give the EPPO centralised access, for targeted searches on a case-by-case basis, to relevant information concerning an investigation through a single-entry point, even if that information concerns several Member States. Such centralised access should be strictly limited to targeted searches related to specific cases and should not entail fishing expeditions or random or generalised monitoring of VAT information. The granting of centralised access to administrative databases to the EPPO for judicial and law enforcement purposes is exceptional in nature and is justified by the need to combat cross-border VAT fraud, and is not to be construed as setting a precedent for more general application.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-14 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.