European chief prosecutor Laura Kövesi has told The Malta Independent of her hope that the desire of Maltese institutions to work with her officer was not “just words” but will become a reality.
Kövesi was in Malta earlier in the week, where she gave a scathing assessment of the lack of cooperation from Maltese authorities in transferring information of possible crimes concerning EU funding fraud or VAT fraud to her office – the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).
In a press briefing following her visit, Kövesi said that Malta has failed to submit any actionable reports to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in the five months that the office has been set up.
Indeed, only two out of the over 2,300 criminal reports submitted to the office from countries across Europe came from Malta, and neither of those fell within the remit of the EPPO.
Asked about whether Malta’s authorities and institutions seemed, from her meetings with them, committed to working with her office, Kövesi said that all of them expressed a desire to work with them, but that time will tell whether this will actually come to pass.
“All the institutions we had meetings with said they want to support us and work with us. They were very open with us and tried to identify a common solution with us, but we need to see in time if this was all just words or if this is the reality,” she told The Malta Independent in a one-on-one interview.
The role of the EPPO is to investigate and prosecute fraud against the budget of the European Union and other crimes against the EU's financial interests including fraud concerning EU funds of over €10,000 and cross-border VAT fraud cases involving damages above €10 million.
Kövesi explained that since Malta is one of 22 countries to sign up to the treaty concerning this office, its authorities and institutions have a duty to inform the EPPO “directly and immediately” of information or reports about crimes which fall under its jurisdiction.
The EPPO will then, upon receiving information, decide whether the case merits further investigation by themselves. If there is enough proof, the case will then be prosecuted in the national court and according to national regulations – not at an EU-level court.
“The entire procedure is before the national courts,” Kövesi explained.
Asked whether her office views Malta as a high-risk jurisdiction for financial crime, particularly owing to the country’s recent grey-listing by the Financial Action Task Force, Kövesi said that it is very difficult to answer the question because of “huge discrepancies” in the number of cases registered on financial crime since 2017.
She said that money laundering cases do not fall under her remit unless it is related to financial fraud, and noted that while it is difficult comment on this topic, the starting point has to be that Malta needs to, like other member states, investigate and report these crimes.
Similarly, Kövesi said that it is difficult for her to comment on the rule of law situation in Malta.
She noted that the important thing behind rule of law is for the country to have an independent judiciary, independent judges, and independent prosecutors.
She said that she had no doubt that the prosecutors in her office – Malta’s nominated European prosecutor is Yvonne Farrugia – were independent, but noted that to be able to prosecute and investigate they require information from the people whose job it is to detect crimes – these being institutions such as the police, intelligence units such as the FIAU, customs department, and even tax authorities.