Book Reviews Vervaele, John A.E. La fraude communautaire et le droit pénal européen des affaires. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994. Pp. xviii, 436. FF 280. The protection of the financial interests of the European Community is very much in the news. Nevertheless, the subject has been ignored for a long time by authors, except in the field of customs. The amount of fraud discovered to date has caused the Community to react, through the Convention of 26 July 1995 (OJ 1995 C 316, and protocol of 27 September 1996, OJ 1996 C 313, based on article K.3 of the EU Treaty) concerning the protection of the financial interests of the European Community, and by Council Regulation 2988/95 of 18 December 1995 concerning the protection of the financial interests of the European Community (OJ 1995 L 312, based on article 235 of the EU Treaty). Next to other monographs (see, e.g., F. Tulkens, C. Van Den Wijngaert and I. Verougstraete, La protection juridique des intérêts financiers des Communautés européennes. Brussels: Bruylant, 1992; L. Huybrechts, T. Marchandise and F. Tulkens, La lutte contre la fraude communautaire dans la pratique, Brussels: Bruylant, 1994), this work by J. Vervaele, a translation of Fraud against the Community: The Need for European Fraud Legislation (Deventer: Kluwer, 1992), is an important contribution to the systematization of the subject matter. The author is known for his publications in the field, and he is closely familiar with the practice through his activities in the Commission. This original approach gives to his work a particular interest. The work is divided into four parts. The first is a general presentation of the subject, with an evaluation of the respective competences of the Member States and the Commission in safeguarding Community law. The second part is the most substantial. It presents the control mechanisms, per sector, in matters such as agriculture, own resources and VAT, and structural funds. It also studies the different aspects of mutual assistance between national authorities and between those and the Commission. It then goes on to examine the role of the Court of Auditors and the Budgetary Control Committee of the European Parliament. A third part presents the antifraud policy of the Commission and the Council. Finally, the fourth part studies the methods of control in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The author defines fraud as practices affecting the flux of income and expenses in the Community budget. He observes these practices with an emphasis on the import and export of goods, on VAT, on Community interventions in the market and on subsidies from structural funds. He argues that the action of Member States is insufficient, due to factors specific to the national control mechanisms, and pleads for more extensive competences for the Commission, taking as model those attributed to the Commission in competition matters. It is true that the work suffers from a certain degree of approximation and is partially out of date because of the enactment of new Community instruments on the subject. Furthermore, the style is at times a little rough, this being probably due to the translation. However, this should not overly irritate the reader, for the book tends to give a technical understanding of the subject rather than a more academic approach. The work of J. Vervaele is a must for all those interested not only in the problem of the fight against fraud, but also in the more general theme of implementing Community law and of shared competences between the Member States and the Commission. The work includes an important documentary section, presenting reports from the Court of Auditors, the European Parliament and the Commission. It is completed with useful indexes of cited acts and decisions, and contains an excellent bibliography. Marc Fallon Université catholique de Louvain
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