On Thursday 3 November, Minister of Justice and Public Administration Ivan Malenica received Chief European Prosecutor Laura Codruţa Kövesi, as part of her two-day official visit to Croatia.
The Minister and the Chief European Prosecutor discussed the work of European Delegated Prosecutors in Croatia, improvement of their working conditions through investments in infrastructure and recruitment of administrative staff, strengthening of international cooperation in proceedings from the scope of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) and future amendments of Croatian legislation on criminal procedure.
Minister Malenica emphasized that since the very beginnings of the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office Croatia has provided strong support to EU's efforts to combat crimes that harm the financial interests of the Union more effectively. He pointed out that Croatia was among the first EU members to secure preconditions for the start of operation of the EPPO and European Delegated Prosecutors in Croatia and to enable a quality exchange of data between all Croatian law enforcement authorities and the EPPO.
Chief European Prosecutor Laura Kövesi acknowledged the efforts of Croatian authorities to improve EPPO's work and thanked for the quality cooperation so far.
The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) is an independent body of the European Union responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to judgement crimes against the financial interests of the EU, including fraud, corruption, money laundering and cross-border VAT fraud. The EPPO started operating on 1 June 2021 and has a two-layer structure: a central level and a national level.
The central structure consists of the European Chief Prosecutor and the College of the EPPO. The College of the EPPO consists of 22 European Prosecutors from the Member States that support the work of the EPPO or that have acceded to the system of enhanced cooperation in protecting the EU budget against fraud. Tamara Laptoš was appointed European Prosecutor from Croatia for a term of six years.
The national structure consists of European Delegated Prosecutors and the Permanent Chambers of the EPPO. European Delegated Prosecutors are responsible for criminal investigations and prosecution and act in complete independence of the national authorities.
European Delegated Prosecutors in Croatia are Sani Ljubičić, Tomislav Kamber, Saša Manojlović and Krešimir Bačić.
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