A budgetary squeeze and bureaucratic inertia threaten the future of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, its top official told POLITICO. In a wide-ranging interview, Laura Codruța Kövesi, who wraps up her seven-year tenure on Friday, said: “As I leave my office, I think of this famous Danish TV show Borgen. There is a very famous saying there: ‘In Brussels, no one can hear you scream,’ and unfortunately, this is true,” she said, in a nod to the Ridley Scott blockbuster Alien.
Kövesi also discussed her interactions with the EU institutions, Greece’s farm subsidy scandal and questions of national sovereignty in the interview, which took place via video call from her office in Luxembourg. This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Your term concludes this week, so what were the main difficulties during your term and what could should happen in a different way by your successor?
When I was appointed, I promised that I would build an efficient, strong and independent institution, which citizens will trust. I think we managed, together with my colleagues, to do this to a large extent. I’m aware that we didn’t succeed in everything, but no one can dispute that we did a good job.
The most important question now is whether this continues. I listened to all the candidates for the European Chief Prosecutor and I was really worried, because one candidate presented himself saying that his project was to normalize EPPO. For someone like me, growing up during communism, this is very threatening.
Another candidate, even worse, spoke about maintaining equal distance between the prosecution office and all the political parties. But how will this be compatible with an independent office? After the first years of activity, we have results that only few people expected.
We have a lot of reactions, and I think we have proved the law is equal for everybody. Now the key challenge for the EPPO and especially for my successor will be to keep the EPPO independent and credible. What has surprised you most during those this term?
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