European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi is arriving on a visit to Bulgaria. This was confirmed by her office in Luxembourg, Nova TV reported.
Prosecutor number 1 of the European Union will meet with the Minister of Justice Georgi Georgiev. The new office of our delegated European prosecutors will also be opened.
They will be moved from the building on General Skobelev Boulevard to the old building of DPS. It is located on Alexander Stamboliyski Boulevard.
The last activity of the European Public Prosecutor's Office in Sofia was the filing of an indictment against the former mayor of Varna, Ivan Portnich, the former regional governor Ivan Pachev, and two officials from the Executive Agency "Maritime Administration" for fraud related to the reconstruction of a non-existent fishing port.
The four are accused of falsifying official documents and providing false information in order to illegally obtain 3.4 million euros from European and national funds for a project aimed at improving the infrastructure of a supposed fishing port on the outskirts of Varna, submitted by the Municipality of the city. The signal was given by the MP from PP-DB Stela Nikolova.
The European Public Prosecutor's Office, under the leadership of Kövesi, headquartered in Luxembourg, is an independent EU body. It is responsible for investigating, prosecuting, and bringing to justice crimes against the financial interests of the Union. The list of crimes includes: fraud, corruption, cross-border VAT fraud, and others. It carries out criminal prosecution and exercises the functions of a prosecutor in the competent courts of the member states, BTA adds. Currently, 24 member states participate in it, each with one European prosecutor.
The mandate of the current Bulgarian European Prosecutor, Teodora Georgieva, who is currently temporarily suspended from office due to disciplinary proceedings against her, expires in July next year.
On October 29, the government instructed the Minister of Justice Georgi Georgiev to create a Commission for the selection of candidates for the position of European Prosecutor from Bulgaria, which will propose three candidates.