The history of European construction will remember that this is the very first convict of the new European public prosecutor’s office. On November 22, 2021, a former mayor of a small town in eastern Slovakia was sentenced to three years in prison and a five-year ban on public office for attempted embezzlement. Europeans. The amounts involved were limited – 93,000 euros, not even disbursed because the false documents were detected in time – and the matter was very simple: the former mayor pleaded guilty.
But with this conviction, details of which such as the identity of the convict cannot yet be revealed, under Slovak law, the European public prosecutor’s office has proved that it is finally on its feet. “It was a very simple case, but I think we will have more complex cases which will be sent to court as early as 2022”, promises Juraj Novocky, the Slovak prosecutor within this institution which aims to drive out cross-border VAT fraud and European funds in the 22 EU countries which are part of it. For example, it is currently investigating suspicions of corruption in a € 50 million cybersecurity project funded by the EU. An investigation that directly concerns the previous Slovak government.
First emerged in 1997, the idea of a centralized prosecutor to fight fraud against European funds took a long time to germinate. But, after years of discussion fueled by the proliferation of corruption scandals buried by national courts sometimes under the influence, the European prosecutor finally started his activity on 1er June 2021. Or rather the prosecutor. It is indeed a woman, Laura Codruta Kövesi, 48, courageous Romanian anti-corruption magistrate, who took the head of this new institution based in Luxembourg.
Intrepid even with the mighty
Surrounded by a prosecutor from each member country, who are each assisted by at least two delegated prosecutors based in their national capital, Mme Kövesi launched his actions with a bang. A true national star in the fight against corruption in her country of origin, this former basketball player applies at European level the methods which have made her known in Romania. First, align the statistics, impressive. According to her, at the beginning of December, the European public prosecutor’s office had already examined 2,500 reports and opened 500 criminal investigations, for an amount of damage to the European budget estimated at 5 billion euros.
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