The EU's chief prosecutor accused the EU leadership of attempting to conceal the scale of corruption.
The European Union's chief prosecutor has accused EU leaders of covering up corruption.
In an interview with Euractiv, Laura Kovesi described how a senior European Commission official asked her to “tone down” her public statements about the scale of corruption and fraud her office was uncovering.
“I said, 'How dare you tell me this? We are independent. And if there's a case, our mandate is to investigate it,'” Kovesi said, adding that she cannot turn a blind eye to accusations, even if they implicate senior EU officials.
During the six years of operation of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), of which Kövesi was the first head, more than 3,600 cases were opened, more than a billion euros were frozen, and some of the most senior officials in the European Union were brought to justice.
However, Kovesi says the bloc's political and institutional systems make serious oversight “painfully difficult.”
“We have many agencies, structures, and offices that are supposed to prevent fraud, conduct audits, and report. And then one day you realize that no one is actually doing what they're supposed to. After 20 years of prevention—look, is that enough?” the prosecutor said, showing a report from last year on suspected fraudulent activity and other financial crimes totaling approximately €67 billion.
She also says that “the lack of support from member states could impact the length of investigations,” referring to protracted cases that have not yet been resolved, including an investigation in Belgium into the EU's largest vaccine procurement contract, which implicates the role of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself.
