Outgoing EU Chief Prosecutor Kövesi Warns EPPO Could Be 'Killed Softly' for Doing Its Job
Laura Codruța Kövesi, head of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), warned in an interview with POLITICO as her seven-year term ends that underfunding and delays threaten the body. She said its independence and credibility are at stake.
Laura Codruța Kövesi, head of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), told POLITICO in an interview published on 28 October that a budget squeeze and bureaucratic inertia threaten the body's future. The EPPO is an EU institution based in Luxembourg that investigates fraud against the EU budget. Kövesi has served for seven years, and her term ends on Friday.
"I am concerned that the EPPO is going to be killed softly because it's doing its job," she said.
Three problems
According to Kövesi, three things are weakening the office. First, underfunding: on paper the EPPO should have 230 European delegated prosecutors, but it has money for only 180. Second, delays — she said the revision of the EPPO regulation should have started earlier and is behind schedule. Third, ongoing EU-level discussions about anti-fraud architecture and a joint intake registry, which she argued complicate prosecutors' work.
She also pointed to Poland, where 24 delegated prosecutors were agreed but only 15 are in place. In Hungary's case, she said, the European Commission proposed half of the budget the office says it needs.
Pressure from member states
Kövesi linked the most blatant attempt at intimidation to Greece, where a dispute arose over renewing the delegated prosecutors' mandates. Asked about Greek politicians saying their country could stop working with the EPPO, she said leaving it is almost impossible.
She acknowledged conflicts of competence in cases involving powerful people: after the EPPO opens an investigation, a case with the same subject is sometimes opened nationally, and the general prosecutor then decides the EPPO is not competent.
On the OPEKEPE farm subsidy case in Greece, Kövesi said indictments were recently finalised and the cases are in court. She rejected claims of political motivation, saying the EPPO's concern is whether honest farmers get access to EU money.
On the sovereignty argument, she asked whether it is better to preserve the sovereignty of criminals, stressing that the EPPO applies national law and appears before national courts.
