Kövesi’s letter was shared in early April with three senior officials from the Commission, according to the document obtained by POLITICO. In it, the EPPO chief alleges that the Commission is depriving it of the means to carry out its work effectively by putting pressure on its budget, notably on the amount spent on IT.
When EPPO was launched in summer 2021, the Commission agreed to provide IT facilities with no end date given. The Commission has now told EPPO it wants to withdraw the IT support. The amount of money involved is around €5 million, according to EPPO’s estimates.
“The unilateral decision … to terminate, on 31 December 2024, the provision of the mentioned services to the EPPO risks that the Union’s independent prosecution office will be in the impossibility to carry out its tasks and achieve its mission,” Kövesi wrote, adding that “it is incumbent on the Commission to abstain from any measure that could jeopardize the attainment of the Treaty objective entrusted to EPPO in combating crimes affecting the financial interests of the Union.”
There’s potentially more at stake than a cut to the IT budget. A relatively new institution, EPPO is also a very important one as its prosecutors are empowered to lead cross-border investigations on something regularly denounced by the member states and the Commission as one of the biggest threats to the EU: criminal organizations going after the EU’s money.
In 2023, the number of EPPO investigations soared, the office wrote in its annual report. More than 200 fraud investigations were opened last year related to the EU-wide Recovery and Resilience Facility, which provides EU cash to help boost post-Covid economic recovery and is worth more than €800 billion. In 2022, when the disbursement of the EU cash was in its early phases, just 15 probes were launched.
Investigators from EPPO took over from Belgian prosecutors investigating von der Leyen over “interference in public functions, destruction of SMS, corruption and conflict of interest,” according to legal documents seen by POLITICO and a spokesperson from the Liège prosecutor’s office. While EPPO’s prosecutors are investigating alleged criminal offenses, no one has yet been charged in connection with the case.
