On Tuesday 3 February, the European Commissioner for Trade, Maroš Šefčovič, denied any “direct or indirect contact” or “meeting” with the American financier Jeffrey Epstein, in a written statement sent by the European Commission’s Spokesperson’s Service.
The former candidate in the 2019 Slovak presidential election stressed that he had not “authorised, requested or agreed to anyone mentioning [his] name to Jeffrey Epstein, including Miroslav Lajčák”. “If Miroslav Lajčák mentioned my name, it was for his own reasons, which I had nothing to do with”, he said, expressing his “dismay” that his name had been used without his knowledge.
The European Union’s special representative for dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina between 2020 and 2025, Slovakia’s Miroslav Lajčák, has resigned from his position as adviser to the Slovak president, Robert Fico, after his name appeared in documents published as part of the Epstein scandal involving the sexual exploitation of young women, some of them minors.
On Tuesday, European Commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari also indicated that former European Commissioner and British Minister Peter Mandelson, who was named and photographed in the Epstein case files, may have broken “certain rules” of the code of conduct that European Commissioners must respect during and after their term of office. “We are in the process of examining these potential infringements”, he said.
Mr Mandelson is said to have advised Mr Epstein on tax matters and to have received $75,000 from the financier.
The Commission has not set up an internal working group to analyse the content of publications relating to the Epstein scandal. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)