The European Public Prosecutor's Office will make a real difference in the fight against corruption and fraud involving EU funds and VAT, promised the head of the institution, Laura Codruța Kövesi, on Tuesday 7 July during an online conference on the topic of corruption in the EU.
Until now, there have been large differences between European countries with regard to the number of investigations opened on these cases. “From now on, the prosecution of these crimes will become a priority for all”, said Ms Kövesi, noting that the 22 European Public Prosecutors in Luxembourg will be responsible for supervising the investigations carried out by the European Delegated Prosecutors in each Member State.
However, for this to happen, the European Public Prosecutor's Office must have a sufficient budget (see EUROPE 12420/9) and prosecutors must be full-time, she insisted.
When asked about the possibility of investigating cases involving countries that do not participate in the European Public Prosecutor's Office, such as Hungary, she noted that this would require the crime to be committed in a Member State participating in the European Public Prosecutor's Office, or for the crime to be linked to a Member State participating in the European Public Prosecutor's Office.
“The inconvenient truth”
Daniel Freund MEP (Greens/EFA, Germany) intended to put his foot in it by speaking bluntly about what he called “the inconvenient truth” – the truth about EU funds serving the political powers in force in Hungary and the Czech Republic.
“The EU is the team sponsor of Fidesz”, lamented the MEP, who had recently visited Hungary. “What I learned is that they systematically rigged the tenders (...) They enter fake firms to pretend there is competition”, he said.
“We can't resolve the issue only by pointing the finger at Babiš or Orbán, we have to start with ourselves”, he warned.
Mr Freund also recommended the allocation of more resources to those fighting fraud and corruption on the ground, and the creation of a public register of the actual final beneficiaries of EU funds.
Special attention should also be paid to EU funds used to support agriculture, the amount of which should, in his view, be capped.
Is a suspension of funds the solution?
For Daniel Freund, ensuring that European funding is conditional on the beneficiary state respecting the Rule of law, would indeed be a “good signal” to send out. Nevertheless, he is of the opinion that the chances of the proposal being adopted are difficult to estimate at this stage.
While the European Commission had proposed the reverse qualified majority rule to trigger this procedure (see EUROPE 12013/3), the fact that Charles Michel's draft budget plan (see EUROPE 12427/1) reverses this rule makes it more politically difficult to accept, he explained.
The urgency of releasing funds intended for economic recovery might also work against conditionality, he said. “The question will be how long will everyone be willing to hold out and push the reluctant governments to accept a Rule of law mechanism”, he said.
For his part, Czech Senator Lukáš Wagenknecht said that a suspension of EU funds in the event of non-compliance with the Rule of law would only work if it were to be directed against leaders such as Andrej Babiš or Viktor Orbán, avoiding any penalising of the country's citizens as a whole.
In 2019, Wagenknecht brought a case before the CJEU over the conflict of interest of Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, who is negotiating the Multiannual Financial Framework and the way in which EU funds are used in Brussels, while also remaining the manager of a co-financed company. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)