Economy The letter from the European prosecutor asking for collaboration against embezzlement without a response from the Government

The Attorney General of the European Union, Laura Kövesi, addressed a letter to the Government on October 24 asking for collaboration to unravel cases of embezzlement of community funds without having yet received a response

Economy The letter from the European prosecutor asking for collaboration against embezzlement without a response from the Government

The Attorney General of the European Union, Laura Kövesi, addressed a letter to the Government on October 24 asking for collaboration to unravel cases of embezzlement of community funds without having yet received a response.

It was addressed to the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, according to the letter to which EL MUNDO has had access. In it, she recalled the huge amount of funds approved to alleviate the pandemic crisis, of which Spain is one of the main beneficiaries.

The Romanian prosecutor stressed that crimes of embezzlement and fraud can occur with these funds and that the European Attorney General's Office is competent to prosecute them.

"Member states must guarantee that the Prosecutor's Office can exercise its powers in relation to the funds of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism (...) Specifically, they must provide efficient and effective control systems," he said in a letter that he also addressed to other member states.

In his opinion, "they must, among other things, collect data from the beneficiaries of the funds, keep records and guarantee the European Public Prosecutor's Office the necessary rights and access to such data."

Therefore, he asked Llop: "Let me know the measures that your Member State has adopted to comply with these obligations." But he hasn't let her know anything. Sources from the Ministry of Justice admit to this newspaper that this letter has not been answered because they consider that it did not request anything specific. What these sources do guarantee is that if the Prosecutor's Office requests something about a specific case, maximum collaboration is provided.

The prosecutor Kövesi does make specific requests to Llop in the letter. «I would appreciate it if you would inform me specifically about what instruments, such as databases and computer systems, are in place to allow the distribution of funds to be controlled and if it is guaranteed that the European delegated prosecutors [in the case of Spain Concepción Sabadell] have access".

He requested access to databases and channels of cooperation

It also urges the minister to explain "how any suspicions about crimes against the Recovery and Resilience funds are reported to the European Prosecutor's Office." And not only that, but "where those funds are used to supplement state funding for projects, when they replace state funds retroactively, and when they are refunds to the state budget." Finally, he asked the Minister of Justice for contacts in the Administration for his prosecutors and if it is necessary to create specific channels and collaboration agreements in this regard.

"Since the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism payments have already begun, it would be useful for the operations of the Prosecutor's Office to receive a response before November 11," the European Attorney General said goodbye. It was in vain and she made her discomfort known to the president of the Control Commission of the European Parliament, Monika Hohlmeier, who did not hesitate on her recent visit to Spain with a parliamentary mission to request a response from the government ministers with whom she met, among those who were not Pilar Llop.

The Ministry says that it responds if it receives specific requests

Holhlmeier was found in the Ministry of Finance with a response similar to the one given by the Department of Justice to this newspaper. The German asked the Ministry to provide full access to the data to the Court of Auditors of the EU, the European Public Prosecutor's Office and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), but, in a closed-door meeting, the general secretary of funds of the Ministry of Finance, Mercedes Caballero, was reluctant and was only open to full collaboration in specific cases. Ditto for the EU Court of Auditors, which she says needs full access, because it doesn't usually investigate individual cases, but rather audits the system as a whole. The MEPs Isabel Benjumea (PP) and Eva Poptcheva (Citizens) also demanded in vain full collaboration with the European institutions. Now they also ask that if there is a connection in the so-called Mediator case with European funds, the European prosecutor's office should be helped. This body has admitted to the parliamentary mission that one of its 15 investigations opened by the new European funds has been in Spain without specifying the case.

When the attorney general wrote to Llop, the so-called Coffee system, the database for the control and monitoring of funds, was not even operational. Now yes, according to the Government and the European Commission, but autonomous communities deny it.

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