Mid-term evaluation of the Hercule III programme. CEPS Research Report, February 2018

The Hercule III programme was established by the European Commission to promote activities against fraud, corruption and any other illegal activities affecting the financial interests of the Union. In compliance with Article 13 of Regulation (EU) No 250/2014 establishing the Hercule III Programme, the Evaluation Roadmap prepared by OLAF and the Better Regulation Guidelines, CEPS was commissioned to carry out a mid-term evaluation, together with three other institutes, to assess the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, EU added value and sustainability of the programme. Based on primary data collected from 574 stakeholders and extensive desk research, the study concludes that Hercule III scores well in all the evaluation criteria. In addition, the programme appears to indirectly contribute to the targets of the Europe 2020 strategy. Therefore, the evaluation recommends the funding of a new edition of the programme in order to sustain the protection of EU financial interests in the coming years. Whereas no major changes would be required in the structure of the programme, it is advisable to introduce certain improvements to enhance the current performance of Hercule III and its future editions. In this respect, the programme should, inter alia, allocate more resources to protecting EU financial interests on the expenditure side of the budget, fighting against corruption and VAT fraud, fostering cross-border cooperation and procuring and making technical equipment available to national authorities.