On 19 July 2021, the European Chief Prosecutor, Laura Kövesi, visited the EPPO office in Athens. She also met the Minister of Justice, Konstantinos Tsiaras, the President of the Supreme Court, Maria Georgiou, and the General Prosecutor, Vasilios Pliotas. Her main objective was to take stock of the level of operational preparedness of the EPPO office in Greece.
The European Chief Prosecutor also took the opportunity to dispel any possible misunderstandings regarding the ongoing assessment, by the EPPO, of two candidates for European Delegated Prosecutors proposed by the Greek authorities. In line with the EPPO regulation, national authorities select and propose candidates for European Delegated Prosecutors, but it is up to the College of the EPPO to decide on their appointment, based on a proposal from the European Chief Prosecutor.
The EPPO takes this process very seriously. European Delegated Prosecutors, as well as European Prosecutors, are an absolute novelty in the institutional landscape of the European Union. Vested with unprecedented powers and responsibilities, they are not the representatives of their respective Member States in an international organisation, in which they would have the task to defend national interests. Representing a European institutional body, they shall act in the interest of the Union as a whole, as defined by law, and neither seek nor take instructions from any person external to the EPPO, any Member State of the European Union or any institution, body, office or agency of the Union in the performance of their duties. National authorities must respect the independence of the EPPO and shall not seek to influence it in the exercise of its tasks.