The head of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, Laura Codruța Kövesi, is visiting Moldova to sign a working agreement with the General Prosecutor’s Office on 12-14 July. The European official is meeting with President Maia Sandu, Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița, Justice Minister Sergiu Litvinenco, Foreign and European Integration Minister Nicu Popescu, representatives of the General Prosecutor’s Office, anti-corruption and anti-organised crime prosecutors and civil society, according to the EU delegation.

At a joint press conference with Justice Minister Sergiu Litvinenco, Kövesi urged Veronica Dragalin, the new chief prosecutor of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA), to call on the help of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) when she needed it, adding that the new PA chief “must be patient and work very hard”.

“(…) I am convinced that she has considerable experience. I presume she knows what she has to do. I do not have advice specifically for her, I have advice for everyone – don’t leave her alone. You can’t do it alone. At least from what I have learned from the public, reading her profile, I see that she has a lot of experience, she knows what the prosecution is, she knows what she has to do, but I think it is very important to build a team, to strengthen a team, to have the necessary resources, to be able to use the legislative tools to be able to apply the experience that she has and, at the same time, not to be alone. My personal advice to her is to be patient, to put in a lot of work and whenever she needs advice or help, to turn to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, because what we have and nobody else in Europe has is expertise and a very thorough knowledge of 22 different pieces of legislation. We are the only European office that works with 22 different criminal codes and we have an in-depth knowledge of 22 different legal systems (…)”, said Laura Codruța Kövesi.

Regarding the recovery of money from the “bank fraud” case, the head of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office said that the institution would be able to open an investigation if the Chișinău authorities provided information on certain Moldovan citizens or companies involved in the case.

“The competence of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is limited to financial fraud offences, in particular, fraud with European funds, VAT fraud, corruption offences, money laundering and organised crime if they are in connection with these frauds. To the extent that we have information from the Moldovan authorities that certain Moldovan citizens or companies represented by Moldovan citizens are involved in such activities, we can certainly open an investigation and assist our colleagues in identifying assets, seizing assets or investigating those persons (…). It is important to say that we are a prosecutor’s office acting as a single authority in 22 Member States. For example, our prosecutors in Germany call their colleagues in Romania, tell them what they need or send them instructions through the electronic case management system, they immediately get what they want, and all the evidence obtained in this way is used directly in the process. If we have these cases with our colleagues in Moldova, we can implicitly consider that Moldovan prosecutors and police officers will have “jurisdiction” in 22 member states of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, through this direct cooperation they can have with us (…)”, concluded Kövesi.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is an independent EU body responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to justice the perpetrators of offences affecting the financial interests of the Union (e.g. fraud, corruption or cross-border VAT fraud exceeding €10 million). To this end, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office investigates, prosecutes and prosecutes before the competent courts of the Member States.

Laura Codruța Kövesi served as chief prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) in Romania from 2013 to 9 July 2018. Prior to that, she was a prosecutor in Sibiu and the Prosecutor General of Romania. At the time of her appointment in 2006, Kövesi was the first woman and the youngest female Prosecutor General in Romania’s history. She is also, after December 1989, the only female Prosecutor General to have completed her mandate.