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It was only in March that the blog passed the milestone of 700 posts, and now it is at 800. To mark the occasion we are publishing some graphs on the current state of enforcement across Europe.
Fines
The first graph shows (in blue columns) the annual values (in euros) of fines/confiscations/penalties/forfeitures for sanctions breaches across Europe from 2017 to 2026.
The green line is the number of fines in any given year valued at €1 million or more.
With nearly four months to go 2026 is at €115.3m and is on track to surpass both 2024 and 2019 in terms of total value (and 2019 had a single fine of £102m from the UK’s FCA).
What the graph also illustrates is that while 2018-2020 had a small number of very large fines, countries across Europe are now imposing a much higher number of significant fines than before.
Jail terms
The next graph is another way of showing the sea change in enforcement outcomes since 2022.
In the last three years over 175 years of jail time (not including suspended sentences) have been handed down. The adoption and implementation of the EU’s harmonization directive, is only going to reinforce and further drive this trend as more member states take on the power to impose a custodial sentence.
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