Outgoing EU chief prosecutor warns EPPO will be 'killed softly for doing its job'

Laura Codruța Kövesi, the European Union's chief public prosecutor, has warned as she prepares to leave office that the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) may be 'killed softly' precisely because it is doing its job. In an interview marking the end of her seven-year tenure, she identified a budgetary squeeze and bureaucratic inertia as the main threats to the office's future.

Speaking by video call from her office in Luxembourg, Kövesi said: 'I am concerned that the EPPO is going to be killed softly because it's doing its job.' Quoting the Danish television series Borgen, she added that in Brussels no one can hear you scream — and that, unfortunately, this is true.

According to Kövesi, there is a familiar pattern for destroying an institution, and all three elements of it are now happening to the EPPO. First, it is being underfunded. On paper there should be 230 European delegated prosecutors, but there is money for only 180, and funding covers only one third of what the security service costs.

Second, there are long delays. Kövesi said the EPPO had argued since 2021 that the revision of its regulation had to start earlier, but the process keeps being postponed. Third, she said, everything in Brussels is complicated — even more so, in her experience, than in her native Romania.

She also gave examples of pressure connected to member governments. In Poland, 24 European delegated prosecutors were agreed, yet only 15 are currently in place. In Hungary's case, the EPPO explained exactly what budget it needed, but the European Commission proposed half of that amount. Kövesi asked how the office could remain credible under such conditions.

She described events in Greece surrounding the renewal of European delegated prosecutors as the most blatant attempt to intimidate the EPPO. In the interview she also discussed Greece's farm subsidy scandal and questions of national sovereignty.

Assessing her own tenure, Kövesi said that on taking office she had promised to build an efficient, strong and independent institution that citizens would trust. Together with her colleagues, she said, they had managed to do this to a large extent, while acknowledging that they had not succeeded in everything. The results of the first years, she said, exceeded what few people had expected, and the office had proved that the law is equal for everybody.

She expressed concern, however, about the race to succeed her. After listening to the candidates for European Chief Prosecutor, she said she was worried: one candidate presented his project as 'normalizing' the EPPO — a phrase she called very threatening for someone who grew up under communism — while another spoke of maintaining an equal distance between the prosecution office and all political parties, which she questioned as incompatible with an independent office.

Kövesi said the EPPO's work had raised the level of crime detection in most member states, increased the number of successful cases and strengthened protection of the EU budget. Still, she admitted that not everything works the way it should. Asked what she would do differently, she said she would change nothing herself — it is the behaviour of others that should change.

Her seven-year term ends on Friday. In Kövesi's view, the EPPO's main challenge now is the revision of its regulation, which will show who is a true friend of an independent judiciary.