EU ambassadors have backed Romania’s Laura Kovesi to head a new pan-bloc prosecutor’s office, in what supporters see as a big step in the fight against authoritarian creep in several central and eastern European states.
Envoys from all but five of the 22 voting member states endorsed Ms Kovesi in an indicative poll on Thursday, opening the way for her formal endorsement for the high-profile European job after the government in Bucharest last year ousted her as national anti-corruption head.
Her candidacy to become the EU’S first chief public prosecutor stalled this year, when she won the backing of the European Parliament but was opposed by a plurality of EU countries, including her own, in favour of a French candidate. Paris relented in July and agreed to leave a clear run for Ms Kovesi, who needs the backing of member states and the newly elected parliament.
Ms Kovesi won plaudits at home and in other European capitals for her five-year tenure leading Romania’s anti-corruption directorate, which secured convictions against ministers, MPS and mayors. Liviu Dragnea, the head of the ruling Social Democrat party when Ms Kovesi was forced from office, was jailed in May for 3½ years in a corruption case.
On Thursday she described the EU decision as “a success of all Romanians who have supported the fight against corruption”, adding: “I hope that this appointment, if finalised, will represent for all Romanian prosecutors and judges a motivation to support the fight against corruption.”
Ms Kovesi will become one of the highest-profile EU officials from eastern Europe in the next commission.
During the nomination process, she faced a number of obstacles from Bucharest. after her ousting as chief prosecutor in July 2018, she was twice put under investigation in a move her supporters said was politically motivated. In March, she was summoned for hours of questioning on the day the European parliament was to vote on her candidacy.
