Tireless corruption fighter Kövesi has sharpened her knives

Radio Free Europe called the arrest of former Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov last week ‘The Kövesi effect’. Laura Codruta Kövesi (48), the chief prosecutor of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EOM) was on a working visit to Bulgaria the days before. There she spoke with new Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, who has pledged to crush the corruption rampant under Borisov. The EPPO would investigate 120 reports about senior (ex-)civil servants and politicians.

‘Kövesi effect’ may have been premature; 24 hours later, Borisov was free again and the EPPO would not confirm whether his arrest has anything to do with his investigation. But anyone who knows Kövesi’s career knows that the Bulgarians under investigation can get their chests wet. Her resume contains an impressive list of corruption investigations and convictions, up to the highest echelons of society.

Bringing in Scalps

In her own country Romania, she mucked out the stable for years. First as Attorney General (the highest position at the Public Prosecution Service) and later as Chief Prosecutor of the National Anti-Corruption Agency (DNA). She was the driving force behind 5,000 convictions, including nine ministers and 83 mayors. The British newspaper The Guardian characterized her as a “quiet, unassuming chief prosecutor” who “gets in the scalps.”

In 2019, she became the first Chief Prosecutor of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which came about after a long process. The EU already had a corruption watchdog (Olaf), but he cannot start any business. Kövesi can, although her mandate focuses on fraud with European money and she depends on the cooperation of national courts for an actual trial. Politico named Kövesi one of the 28 most powerful people in Europe this year. According to the news site, she is on a mission to clean Europe of corruption. “There are no clean countries,” the prosecutor said.

No profession for women

Laura Codruta Lascu (Kövesi is the surname of her husband, whom she divorced in 2007 – she kept the name) was born in 1973 in Sfântu Gheorghe, central Romania, the daughter of a teacher and a lawyer. The family moved to the town of Medias, where her father was a prosecutor from 1980 to 2010. Already at the age of eight she showed that she had a talent for sports and she turned out to be a passionate basketball player. She even played in the national team. After an injury at the age of seventeen, she chose to study law.

In her first job as a prosecutor, she was told that it is not a profession for women. “I didn’t let that stop me,” she later wrote in a personal piece The Financial Times† “The many years in the sports world had taught me that work, courage and excellence surpass all prejudice.” In 2006 she attracted the attention of the then minister of justice, who was looking for young talented lawyers. He also specifically looked for people who did not have strong political ties to the past; Kövesi was 16 when Ceauseșcu’s communist dictatorship fell. At the age of 33, the still completely unknown lawyer became Romania’s youngest and first female Attorney General.

folk spectacle

In a profile of the Romanian magazine ARID from 2018, employees describe her as driven, demanding and stubborn. Little is known about her personal life, except for her love of basketball. She is religious, there were always Orthodox icons in her Romanian offices.

Kövesi quickly made a name for himself as Attorney General, but her reputation as a ruthless anti-corruptionist mainly comes from her time at the helm of the National Anti-Corruption Agency (2013-2018). She fought the inviolability of power and the impunity of their actions.

Kövesi was praised for this by embassies and the international press. In Romania, her image is more controversial. Critics argue that the DNA has sometimes been overzealous and created a hard-core culture in which anti-corruption became a people’s spectacle – at demonstrations, politicians were chanted that ‘the DNA is coming for you’. The agency also sometimes made use of wiretapping techniques. Although, according to Kövesi, these were always used with the permission of the courts, this practice brought up unpleasant memories of the communist secret service.

Kövesi’s iconic status also says something about Romania, the magazine noted ARID on. Some of her compatriots began to see DNA as a tool to “fix” the country, something politicians had been failing to do for years. Tellingly, in a 2015 poll, confidence in the unelected Kövesi and DNA was as high as that in the Romanian Orthodox Church (both around 60 percent), with only 11 percent of Romanians trusting parliament.

Political enemies

For Romanians, she became the face of anti-corruption, but she made many political enemies. In 2017, the PSD Social Democrats returned to power in Romania. Kövesi was increasingly opposed politically and was even removed from her position in 2018. Investigations were launched against her for abuse of power, for which she has been acquitted to date.

After the European Parliament endorsed her candidacy for the European top job in 2019, the Romanian government wanted to put a stop to her appointment. Unsuccessfully: she became the first chief prosecutor of the EPPO.

The start of the EPPO did not go smoothly. The allocated budget was lower than promised and not all EU Member States are affiliated (22 out of 27). But Kövesi bravely carries out her task. “We will fight powerful people, we will investigate powerful people,” she told Politico† On Thursday, the EPPO published its first annual report, which states that €5.4 billion in possible fraud has already been detected. If the EPPO eventually turns out to be targeting Borisov, that will be a major challenge. But no task has turned out to be too small for Kövesi so far.