the European Chief Prosecutor does not normally comment on political statements, she has now responded to N1's enquiry regarding the comments by the Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on the police action ordered by the EPPO at the Ministry of Culture.

Plenkovic said that “no one is more interested than me, Minister Obuljen and the entire government, that all funds, whether they come from the state budget or from the European one, must be spent in a legal manner”.

If, the Prime Minister said, we are talking about the project to survey buildings after the earthquake, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Construction, as well as the Central Finance and Contracting Agency, which controlled these operations, have established beyond doubt, and this is confirmed by the Ministry of Finance, that the funds for this project did not come from European funds.

“This does not mean, however, that there is no need to investigate whether there were irregularities,” Plenkovic said, adding that it will become clear later whether the European Public Prosecutor’s Office or the DORH is responsible for this.

N1 asked Laura Kövesi, the European Chief Prosecutor, for comment.

“As a rule, the European Chief Prosecutor does not comment on political statements. However, the European Chief Prosecutor is responsible for protecting the EPPO from any attempt to interfere with its investigations. The European Chief Prosecutor trusts it is not the objective of any public official in Croatia, let alone of the Prime Minister of Croatia, to interfere with EPPO investigations in general, and this one in particular”, she said.

“Given the Prime Minister’s strong support to the creation of the EPPO, the European Chief Prosecutor is convinced that he didn’t mean to encourage the opening of parallel proceedings into the same facts as those investigated by the EPPO, leading to a conflict of competence between the EPPO and DORH or USKOK, and eventually preventing the EPPO from bringing its investigation to a conclusion.

Indeed, such a development would constitute a serious breach to the proper functioning of investigation and public prosecution services in relation to the investigation and prosecution of fraud, including tax fraud, corruption, or other breaches of Union law relating to the implementation of the Union budget or to the protection of the financial interests of the Union, as stipulated in Regulation 2020/2092 on a general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget,” said Laura Kövesi for N1 Zagreb.