European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kovesi said on Sunday that the jurisdiction of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) is not determined by governments, parliaments, politicians or business people but the judiciary.

Commenting on Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic’s claim that the investigation into possible subsidy fraud at the Zagreb Faculty of Geodesy was not within the EPPO’s remit, Kovesi said that the EPPO assesses very well its competencies, following the relevant regulation and rules concerning its competence.

If someone has doubts about how the Regulation should be interpreted, they should address the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg and ask how it should be interpreted, she said in an interview for N1.

The competence of the EPPO is not for the government, parliament, politicians or business people to decide, that “is something that belongs to the judiciary,” Kovesi said.

The real question regarding the Faculty of Geodesy case is whether or not fraud was committed. The EPPO is trying to investigate the case and establish if it happened, she said.

“I think that the citizens of Croatia would like to know if there is a fraud, if someone has stolen the money or not. This is the real question,” Kovesi said.

Asked if she considered such statements as a form of pressure, Kövesi said that they were a form of smokescreen, designed to divert attention from the question of whether an offence had been committed or not to the question of who should be in charge of investigating it.

Kovesi also noted that the EPPO Office in Croatia has a very good team and very good prosecutors who do a very good job.

We do not tell the governments how they should lead the country, we do not tell the parliaments how they should adopt the laws, so no one should tell the police officers, prosecutors and judges how to investigate cases and make decisions in the judiciary, Kövesi said.

Croatian European Prosecutor Tamara Laptos, too, said in an interview with N1 that the Faculty of Geodesy case was definitely within the EPPO’s remit.

“The EPPO Regulation is clear – when there is an offence that affects the EU’s financial interests, regardless of whether damage has happened or could have happened, the EPPO is in charge. It is also in charge of the inseparably related cases,” Laptos said.

Commenting on amendments to the Penal Code, the so-called Lex AP, Laptoš said that they do not improve the protection of the criminal procedure during the investigation stage.

“As regards conduct during the investigation, nothing will change. When prosecutorial investigation was introduced, under the law in force at the time, there was investigation secrecy. After a while, we abandoned it, and now we are introducing it again. Personally, I don’t see any reason for such changes to the Penal Code,” said Laptos.