As part of its first amending budget for 2020 (see other news), the European Commission proposed on Friday 27 March to allocate an additional €3.3 million for the 2020 budget of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Since her appointment, Laura Codruţa Kövesi, European Chief Prosecutor of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, has consistently advocated for a considerable increase in budget and staff for the years 2020 and 2021 (see EUROPE 12420/9). Recently, the leaders of the EPP, S&D and Renew Europe (RE) groups in the European Parliament put pressure on the European Commission, asking it to present a proposal for an amending budget (see EUROPE 12446/25) as soon as possible.
That has not been done. This additional funding of €3.3 million in commitment and payment appropriations is intended to cover “the increase in staff costs as well as other IT and security-related expenditure not originally foreseen in the 2020 budget”, says the Commission. This brings the EU’s contribution to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office budget for 2020 to €11,672,000.
This increase in funding, together with the €3 million funding granted at the end of February for the development of the case management system (see EUROPE 12441/3), increased by half (+48%) the resources of EPPO for 2020, European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders welcomed on Twitter.
On the management side, the Commission proposes to transform one of the AD11 grade administrator posts foreseen for 2020 into an AD14 grade administrator post, in order to allow the recruitment of the Executive Director who will replace the current interim Director seconded by the Commission.
According to the Commissioner, the envelope will also make it possible to anticipate “half of the additional posts planned for 2021” in 2020. 18 additional staff are expected to be recruited this year. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)