Laura Kodruta Kövesi. Remember this name. The Romanian magistrate wrote a page in European history by becoming the first head of the European Attorney General’s Office, a new independent institution charged with combating fraud on the EU budget.
As it happened, the court started its proceedings on June 1, the same day when, for the first time in its history, the European Union issued a common debt to finance the 750 billion euro recovery plan. The European court will investigate suspicions of fraud, which inevitably will not be lacking.
The new institution will be able to conduct cross-border investigations into fraud involving European funds exceeding ten thousand euros, on corruption cases or on money laundering episodes. The perpetrators of the infringements will in any case be referred back to the courts of the member states.
But not all European countries will participate in the initiative. The birth of this court was painful, and is currently supported by only 22 out of 27 EU countries. Hungary and Poland, but also Sweden, Denmark and Ireland, will not initially be part of it, for different reasons.
Another problem is given by the fact that Slovenia, which will assume the presidency of the Union on 1 July, is experiencing a political mini-crisis regarding the choice of the magistrate who will be the referent of the European court, at the origin of the resignation of the Minister of Justice in end of May. A bad example from a government that is getting closer and closer to populism.
How to really change things
It must be said that the stakes are extremely high. In fact, the estimated fraud on the European budget amounts to hundreds of millions of euros, and even more in the lack of VAT revenues that are escaping the states due to cross-border fraud.
On paper, the European court will have important powers to carry out its mission, but it will be practice to tell us whether this new institution can really change things. In principle, the prosecutor is appointed for a single seven-year term, which can only be dismissed by the European Court of Justice, which guarantees his independence. The chief prosecutor will be backed by 140 delegated prosecutors in the signatory countries (in France, for example, there will be five).
At the head of the new institution, Laura Kodruta Kövesi enjoys great legitimacy. The young woman headed the Anti-Corruption Directorate in Romania before being turned away by a corrupt government. The former Romanian government, later disheartened by the voters, had tried in vain to oppose Kövesi’s appointment as head of the European court. In the end, the Romanian magistrate also passed the last test, which is the challenge of a French candidate. Paris had the elegance of retreating, because the symbol of this brave woman is a good omen for the new institution.
The “incorruptible” in charge of monitoring European money can do a lot to strengthen the confidence of the citizens of the Union when the funds for the recovery plan arrive. It’s up to them to prove they are up to it.
Translation by Andrea Sparacino
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