Laura Codruţa Kövesi, the director of the EU’s financial crime agency, said Malta is only giving lip service to its attempts to combat EU fraud and corruption.
Kövesi told European parliamentarians on Wednesday (20 April) that the island nation’s national authorities were unable to reply to simple inquiries.
“I visited Malta. I had meetings with the national authorities and after two days it was very difficult for me to identify the institution that is responsible for detecting crimes,” she said. “All of them said that ‘it’s not me. It’s them.’ And when I visited them, they said ‘it’s not us’,” she said
Kövesi is the head of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is situated in Luxembourg. The office’s mission is to combat VAT fraud and other financial crimes using EU funds. Since its inception in June last year, it has confiscated €147 million in assets, made arrests, and presently has 515 ongoing investigations involving €5.4 billion in damages.
Aside from Ireland, Hungary, Poland, and Sweden, every EU member state has joined the Luxembourg-based agency to assist in the battle against crime.
Denmark has a unique opt-out system. Malta, on the other hand, is unique in that it is the only participating member that has not launched an inquiry.
“You cannot find it if you don’t search, especially revenue fraud,” said Kövesi.
This stands in contrast to the 576 total cases opened across all other participating member states, including 120 in Italy alone. She is now demanding a revision of the rules that underpin the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Source from EU Observer rule of law.
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