To read the full Q&A with Laura Codruța Kövesi, click here.

ATHENS — Ursula von der Leyen has not yet provided an in-person statement to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office for its investigation into the procurement of coronavirus vaccines, according to an individual involved in the effort who was granted anonymity to speak freely.

In 2024, EPPO took over the Belgian-led probe into alleged criminal wrongdoing in connection with vaccine negotiations between the European Commission chief and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. Prosecutors have been investigating von der Leyen for “interference in public functions, destruction of SMS, corruption and conflict of interest,” according to legal documents seen by POLITICO.

Asked to respond to the assertion that von der Leyen has failed to provide a statement on the so-called Pfizergate affair, Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said: “The Commission has demonstrably cooperated extensively with EPPO to clarify facts and assess events.”

“This was always done on behalf of and with the full support of the President. The President has always been, and continues to be, very cooperative in answering to any open questions — within the limits of her duties and her availability as President of the Commission.”

In an interview with POLITICO, EPPO chief prosecutor Laura Codruța Kövesi, who wraps up her seven-year tenure on Friday, said she has on multiple occasions dealt with EU officials who refused to answer summons from her office. “Some politicians think that they are above the law,” she said. “If you are called in for a statement, you have to come.”

She added: “I will not be shy to tell you that especially when important people are involved in the investigation — be it high-profile politicians or rich people who are connected to the political class, we have difficulties in exercising our competence.”

When asked whether von der Leyen was one of the officials in question, Kövesi said she wouldn’t comment on specific investigations.

Killing EPPO softly

EPPO, set up in 2017 and operational since 2021, is tasked with rooting out crimes involving EU funds. As head of the organization, Kövesi said she has faced repeated attacks and attempts to undermine the institution and its work.

“As I leave my office, I think of this famous Danish TV show, Borgen. There is a very famous saying there: ‘In Brussels, no one can hear you scream,’ and unfortunately, this is true,” she said, in a nod to the Ridley Scott blockbuster Alien. “I am concerned that the EPPO is going to be killed softly because it’s doing its job.”

Kövesi cited three main factors undermining the institution’s work: chronic underfunding, delays in the revision of the organization’s legal framework and the complexity of its bureaucratic architecture, which she said leads to “endless discussion about how to complicate the life of the prosecutors.”

Asked what she would do differently if she could start over again, the chief prosecutor said she “would do the same things, but maybe the others should change their behavior,” adding that the biggest challenge her successor, German prosecutor Andrés Ritter, will face is keeping EPPO “independent and credible.”

Greece’s ‘blatant’ intimidation

Kövesi said that during her tenure, “the most blatant attempt” to intimidate EPPO prosecutors was in Greece, which was hit by a farm funding scandal last year — leading to the resignation of ministers and deputy ministers. The cases of four MPs from the ruling New Democracy party are currently being heard in court. They all plead innocent.

Last May, EPPO sent a formal complaint to the Commission regarding moves by the Greek government to block EU prosecutors from investigating Greek lawmakers. It also complained about the Greek Supreme Judicial Council’s refusal to renew the mandate of European-delegated prosecutors for five years at EPPO’s request. Kövesi warned that this could result in EU funding cuts for Greece under Article 16 of the EPPO Regulation.

The cooperation between EPPO and the Greek government has been difficult, with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hinting at a political agenda by EPPO by complaining of “selective leaks.”

“All the noise was created to blame EPPO that we play politics instead of discussing what happened in reality,” said Kövesi. “Some politicians speak about an independent and efficient judiciary, until you touch them and until you go close to their inner circle. In that moment, the prosecutors are abusive, they have a political agenda, they are not needed.”

Some Greek government officials have suggested that Greece could simply opt out of the EU institution, but Kövesi said this is “almost impossible.”

The chief prosecutor also raised concerns about the impact of budgetary restrictions on EPPO’s work elsewhere in the bloc. The organization is currently setting up its operations in Hungary, which officially became a participating member of EPPO in August 2026 — but Kövesi is skeptical about how successful it will be.

“We explained exactly what we need to do our job, but the Commission proposed half of [the budget] we need,” she said, adding that EPPO’s “credibility is at stake” in countries like Poland, where “expectations were huge” but the organization has not been able to deliver on its promises.

EPPO is also investigating the alleged misuse of more than €4 million by the Identity and Democracy group, a defunct political grouping in the European Parliament whose debts Patriots for Europe could be forced to repay. The latter group includes France’s far-right National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner ahead of France’s 2027 presidential elections.

“If you ask EPPO to abstain and to not do anything because there are elections in Europe, we will not work at all,” said Kövesi.

Mari Eccles contributed to this report.

BELGRADE — Brussels has lost its man in Belgrade.

The opposition Student List’s landslide victory on Sunday ended Aleksandar Vučić’s 12-year run as the EU’s key interlocutor in Serbia. For more than a decade, every step of the candidate country’s accession process and trade negotiations had to pass through him.

“Aleksandar Vučić acted like the go-to person for everything while ignoring all the laws in the country, including the constitution,” Jugoslav Gašić, an assistant professor in medicine at several universities and soon-to-be MP, said in an interview.

When POLITICO reached him, Gašić was in the middle of grading student papers — a fitting snapshot of a new parliamentary majority made up largely of professors, doctors and other political novices.

The Student List won an outright parliamentary majority at the weekend: a stunning result for a leaderless movement born out of protests.

The party’s first order of business will be undoing much the legacy of Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), starting with reversing years of rule-of-law rollbacks. But it will also reset Serbia’s relationship with Brussels, which the Student List argues the former leader managed more as a transactional tool than a genuine path to EU membership.

“Ultimately, [Vučić] always represented his own interests and not the interests of Serbia,” said Gašić.

Representatives for the SNS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Even among Serbia’s most committed pro-Europeans, Brussels’ willingness to route all progress through Vučić personally has left a bitter aftertaste.

“The key lesson that should be drawn from the case of Serbia is that the EU can very easily lose credibility and integrity if it ignores the causes of democratic backsliding in a country,” said Srdjan Majstorović, chairman of the governing board of the European Policy Center (CEP), a think tank.

According to CEP data published earlier this year, as many 41.6% of citizens believe the EU is more interested in pursuing its own political and economic interests in the region than improving the state of democracy and the rule of law in the country.

For years, anytime non-governmental organizations, journalists or activists argued that Brussels should try to include other voices in the EU negotiation process, they were told “that there was no alternative to the regime in Serbia,” Majstorović continued.

The Student List’s election program casts the EU as Serbia’s most important economic partner and pledged to deepen Belgrade’s existing strategic partnerships with EU members such as Greece, Italy, Hungary and France, while seeking closer bilateral ties with other European capitals.

It does not, however, explicitly name EU membership as an immediate goal.

Gašić wouldn’t be drawn on concrete aims for the Serbia-EU relationship, but said: “We don’t want to be cut off by Europe. We don’t want to be an isolated island.”

“I respect how well-ordered they are, the rule of law and democratic principles,” he added. “Yet I think we need to reset our priorities with the EU, where we consider Serbia’s interests first. A one-sided approach doesn’t foster long-term cooperation.”

The Student List grew out of a mass protest movement sparked by a 2024 railway station roof collapse that killed 16 people. Students blamed the deaths on corruption in state construction contracts and began blockading universities, and within months the protests had swelled into the largest Serbia had seen in decades.

Brussels’ response was muted as students marched across the country, with EU officials largely avoided criticizing Vučić directly. EU flags were conspicuously absent from the demonstrations.

The European Commission didn’t respond to a request for comment for this article.

“The Commission must first restore its long-lost credibility after years of propping up Vučić,” said Djordje Bojović, a foreign policy advisor for Greens in the European Parliament.

He said that Serbia has long been demonized and struggled to reinvent its image since the 1990s, an image “only further cemented by Vučić’s repressive authoritarianism.”

Despite those concerns, Serbia’s economic ties with Europe flourished during Vučić’s time in power, with the country becoming one of the region’s leading destinations for foreign investment.

Under Vučić, Serbia went from about €750 million in foreign direct investment in 2012 to more than €30 billion over the following decade, more than the rest of the Western Balkans combined.

In Brussels, figures such as Bojović and representatives of the opposition parties would plead with institutions such as the Parliament and the Commission to meet with them or take their concerns seriously.

“Vučić had convinced all of them that the opposition is not worth talking to and that they’re not credible,” Bojović said.

Now, with SNS firmly relegated to the opposition, Brussels will need to rethink how it works with Serbia. To many Serbians, the EU has 12 years of looking the other way to answer for first.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the center-right European People’s Party over alleged misuse of funds in its contracts with two Greek consultants, a media consortium reported.

The investigation centers on more than half a million euros awarded to two consultants ahead of the 2024 European election.

The European Parliament, which finances European political parties, refused to reimburse the contracts in full after deeming the costs excessive.

It covered only the initial €110,000 payments, leaving the EPP to pay roughly €350,000 itself, according to Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, Dutch investigative outlet Follow the Money and Greece’s Inside Story.

The consultants were hired to work on the party’s communications ahead of the election campaign. However, former EPP employees told reporters at the outlets that their fees were disproportionate to the work they delivered. The consultants disputed that assessment and said they had subsequently reimbursed part of the money.

The EPPO neither confirmed nor denied the investigation, saying it could not comment in case it jeopardized any ongoing proceedings or their outcome.

A spokesperson for the EPP said: “We have not been formally notified regarding this matter. The EPP fully respects the independence and mandate of the relevant authorities and remains committed to providing them complete transparency and full cooperation, should it be requested.”

A Serbian prosecutor investigating alleged corruption surrounding a Trump real estate project in Belgrade was targeted with Israeli-made Pegasus spyware after speaking out about political interference and abuses of power, according to research made public Monday.

Rade Bajić, a member of Serbia’s Public Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime, is reported to be the latest target identified in a growing spyware scandal that has engulfed the country’s political opposition, civil society and institutions.

The research is the latest by Toronto University’s Citizen Lab in collaboration with Serbian digital rights organization, SHARE Foundation, including the discovery that Bajić received an Apple Threat Notification iMessage on Aug. 13.

The spyware revelation comes amid mounting controversy over plans to redevelop the former Yugoslav military headquarters in Belgrade into a luxury Trump Tower skyscraper. The project, associated with Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has faced allegations of political interference and irregularities surrounding the removal of the site’s protected heritage status.

Bajić’s targeting follows revelations in September that at least 14 people in Serbia, including student activists and opposition figures, had received warnings indicating they may have been targeted with sophisticated spyware. Researchers at Toronto University’s Citizen Lab confirmed a Pegasus infection in at least one case. 

“In Serbia, spyware surveillance has steadily expanded from civil society and journalists to student activists, politicians and now university and judicial representatives,” said Andrijana Ristić, a policy advisor at SHARE Foundation. “This escalation is fueled by perceived impunity and state inaction, even in cases where criminal complaints have been filed.”

Another prominent figure caught up in the surveillance scandal is Vladan Đokić, rector of the University of Belgrade, whose phone was infected with Pegasus, according to the same report.

Đokić has emerged as a prominent figure in Serbia’s protest movement after refusing to facilitate a government crackdown on student demonstrators. He has faced sustained pressure from authorities, including a police raid on his university offices on March 31, during which computers and servers were reportedly seized.

Until September, Đokić was also frequently mentioned as a potential leader of the student-backed electoral list ahead of Serbia’s planned Oct. 25 parliamentary snap elections.

The identity of those responsible for deploying Pegasus against Bajić and Đokić has not been established.

“NSO has spent a decade claiming to turn over a new leaf each time an abuse surfaces. But there is no hiding the truth: Pegasus is a technology for repression,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab. “It’s no accident that people standing up for freedom in the face of corruption keep getting hacked with NSO’s products.”