Executive summary

The Pericles 2020 Programme (hereinafter ‘Pericles 2020’ or the ‘Programme’) was established by Regulation (EU) No 331/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council on 11 March 2014 (hereinafter 'the Regulation') for the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020. It was a European Union (EU) initiative intended to contribute to the protection of the euro. In particular, the Programme provided financial support to activities intended to strengthen the capacity to prevent and combat counterfeiting of the euro and related fraud in relevant authorities in EU Member States (MS) as well as in countries outside of the EU (hereinafter ‘third countries’).

The Programme financed the following main types of actions: conferences; workshops; training activities; staff exchanges; studies; and provision of equipment to anti-counterfeiting authorities in third countries.

Pursuant to Article 13(6) of the Regulation, the Commission shall present to the European Parliament and to the Council a final evaluation report on the achievement of the objectives of the Programme. In this respect, an evaluation study, which ran from April 2021 to March 2022, was carried out by an external contractor and assessed the Programme’s overall implementation in the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020. The present evaluation report is based on this evaluation study (hereinafter the ‘Evaluation’).

The Evaluation covered all types of actions under the Pericles 2020 Programme (both within EU Member States and third countries) and considered the progress on the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the mid-term evaluation of the Programme.

The Evaluation covered all the five evaluation criteria typically used in the assessment of EU programmes, namely: (i) relevance; (ii) effectiveness; (iii) efficiency; (iv) EU added value; and (v) coherence. In addition, the Evaluation also considered a sixth criteria: (vi) sustainability, in line with the evaluation requirements of Regulation (EU) No 331/2014.

The key findings of the Evaluation can be summarised below:

ØAll findings converge towards an unambiguously positive overall assessment. From the evaluation study it is clear that Pericles 2020 has achieved both its general and specific objectives;

ØIt is seen as the only programme that supports, on an EU and global level, the enhancement of the operational capacity of stakeholders involved in the protection of the euro, dissemination of best practices regarding the fight against counterfeiting, and essentially building trust between institutions across countries and regions. Therefore, and due to the ever-evolving threats to the euro that counterfeiting poses, there is a continued need for Pericles actions;

ØStakeholders interviewed and surveyed perceive euro counterfeiting as a problem within their countries and as a phenomenon that crosses Member State and EU external borders;

ØA new emerging threat area identified evolves around the possible development of the digital euro and the related risk of e-counterfeiting for example the replication of tokens possibly used for a digital currency and thus a continued need for closer and more regular institutional cooperation and coordination is necessary;

ØThe Programme has been effective, since it has been successful in delivering all the envisaged diverse types of activities with respect to the protection of the euro and also since it took into account the multidisciplinary aspects of the fight against counterfeiting. Moreover, it became evident that the face-to-face aspect of the actions implemented under the Programme are vital for its effectiveness and it constitutes one of its main benefits;

ØThe overall coordination, management, and administrative structures have been positively assessed by the stakeholders;