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.

BRUSSELS — The EU’s influential competition regulators have taken on some of the planet’s most powerful companies, from Google to Gazprom. But they are steering clear of opening a case against the world soccer governing body, FIFA. 

A complaint lodged by the European Leagues professional soccer association in October 2024 accused FIFA of abusing its dominant position by imposing its international match calendar on other sporting stakeholders. It argued that FIFA’s dual role as a governing body and the organizer of its own competitions creates a conflict of interest, through which it enriches itself. The leagues broadened the complaint last month to cover the women’s game — but the Commission has yet to open formal proceedings.

Brussels has left the European Leagues complaint in the “freezer,” one senior EU official with knowledge of the file told POLITICO. 

The episode underscores the Directorate-General for Competition’s long-running reluctance to open investigations into sports federations, which current and former European officials say is due to sport’s special status in EU law — the treaties recognize its social and educational role — but also a deliberate policy choice to swerve potentially controversial cases in an emotionally charged sector.

Now, pressure is building against the competition department over the languishing European Leagues complaint, after a cross-party group of EU lawmakers urged the Commission to use its antitrust powers to rein in FIFA. 

In a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, obtained by POLITICO and copied to competition chief Teresa Ribera, MEPs called for action. Bruno Gonçalves and Hannes Heide (both from the Socialists and Democrats) and Bogdan Zdrojewski (from the conservative European People’s Party) asked the Commission to take formal action, including in relation to the complaint lodged by the European Leagues, which represents 53 men’s and women’s professional football leagues across the continent.

The MEPs say the governing body’s application of the calendar “raises concerns about FIFA’s use of regulatory powers to advance FIFA’s own commercial interests,” and that those powers “must be exercised through transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate procedures, with effective safeguards against conflicts of interest.” The EU’s top court set that test for sports bodies in its landmark 2023 Super League ruling.

“FIFA is both referee and promoter of the show,” Gonçalves told POLITICO. “We have to make sure the referee doesn’t put business before people.”

Representatives for the European Leagues pressed their case in a meeting with Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera’s Cabinet in late April, but their overtures have so far been fruitless.

“The thinking has always been, on the one hand, that sports has a special status, so it is not a market comparable to others that normally are scrutinized by the competition directorate,” said one former senior EU official, who was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive file in order to protect relationships. 

“But also, sports cases get very political and the Commission feels that member states tend to take the side of the federations so it’s hesitant to pick this fight up,” the former official added.

The Vestager principles

Over the last 15 years, Brussels has opened blockbuster investigations into Gazprom’s behavior in Central and Eastern European gas markets; whether Google illegitimately hindered the development and market access of rival mobile operating systems; and Apple’s rules for app developers.

But the Commission’s caution on sports is long-standing. 

When then-competition chief Margrethe Vestager ordered the International Skating Union in 2017 to drop rules threatening speed skaters with lifetime bans for joining money-spinning rival events, she said the decision didn’t mean the Commission was “trying to be the referee in every dispute about sport.”

Many disputes, from doping penalties to deciding the precise scheduling of games, have “little or nothing at all to do with competition rules,” Vestager said at the time. National courts and competition authorities, she added, are “usually well placed to deal with competition disputes involving a sport federation.”

Those principles have since come to guide how the Commission’s competition department decides which sports disputes to take on. There is no shortage of candidates, with controversies in sports including tennis, padel and sailing, as well as soccer.

Any investigation would test recent case law. A pair of July rulings on FIFA’s agent rules went largely the governing body’s way. In those cases, the Court of Justice of the European Union accepted that federations can impose restrictions if they pursue legitimate aims proportionately.

Ben Van Rompuy, a competition law professor at Leiden University who helped bring the original ISU complaint, said there would likely be “little appetite” in Brussels to take up the leagues’ case.

When the ISU complaint reached the Commission, courts had said little about how competition law applied to sport. Since then, “we’ve had an abundance of such guidance,” and “national enforcement in front of the courts seems to work,” Van Rompuy said. That leaves less reason for the Commission to step in. The leagues have also sued in a Brussels court, which suggests “they themselves believe that the national courts could protect their rights.”

Measured against the Commission’s own criteria for prioritizing complaints, the case looks weak, Van Rompuy said. Its impact on the EU’s internal market is “extremely limited,” he added.

FIFA declined to comment on the European Leagues complaint and the EU lawmakers’ letter.

Commission spokesperson Ricardo Cardoso said international sports bodies have “a primary responsibility” for organizing global events, and that sport is mainly a matter for national governments, with the EU playing a supporting role.

When sports organizations act as undertakings, the EU legal term for entities carrying out economic activity, they are subject to the rules of competition, Cardoso said. He added that the Commission constantly monitors markets for possible breaches, and that “if any complaint is filed, the Commission will assess according to standard practice.”

Public and political criticism of FIFA has reached fever pitch over the last 12 months due to the governing body’s cozy relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and an ultimately aborted plot this summer to sell off parts of the World Cup tournament to private investors.

According to the letter from EU lawmakers, FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s commercial sell-off scheme “exposed serious shortcomings in transparency, accountability and institutional decision-making.”