Yesterday, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) after an investigation in Greece into the misuse of European funds for agricultural development, charged four MPs from the ruling party. They are suspected of instigation to commit abuse of trust, and one of them of instigation to unlawful management of EU funds. In one case, there is also instigation to false attestation and attempted computer fraud. Along with the MPs 18 other individuals were also charged, including former officials. For nine other initially investigated parliamentarians, EPPO stated that it had not found incriminating evidence.

This case entered Albanian public debate several months ago when the Greek parliament approved EPPO’s request to lift the immunity of 13 deputies. This happened at the height of the heated debate over Prime Minister Rama and his majority’s refusal to lift the immunity of former Deputy Prime Minister Balluku following SPAK’s request. The opposition used it as an example of how such cases should be handled. The argument was that immunity cannot protect against accusations and the accompanying measures, even when the suspected criminal offenses are minor—as in the case of the Greek deputies—let alone when it involves serious acts like those reported by SPAK in the Balluku case.

However, there is another aspect where EPPO and the Greek case should enter both the Albanian and the European debate. OLAF (the European Anti-Fraud Office, which conducts administrative but not criminal investigations) examined for three years the use of European funds by Albania’s Ministry of Agriculture and its subordinate agency, AZhBR. After concluding that 33 million euros were suspected of being misused, the European Commission decided in 2023 to freeze active projects and suspend the next program (IPARD 3), worth 112 million euros. This situation continues to this day. The conditions set by Brussels for reforms guaranteeing that abuses will not be repeated have not been met by the government. The criminal investigation—first by the Tirana Prosecutor’s Office and later by SPAK—has not resulted in any charges. To make matters worse, in a public affront, Prime Minister Rama appointed as his advisor on agriculture the former head of the ministry and the agency during the period when the abuses occurred.

This situation could have taken a different course if it had been investigated by EPPO, as the Greek case demonstrates. Our prosecutors, in the best case due to overload and in the worst case due to unwillingness, have not completed in a reasonable time an investigation into an issue that is serious not only because of the financial volume but even more so for Albania’s relationship with the European Union. Therefore, in such cases, investigation by EPPO would be a major advantage. For this to happen, legal adjustments by the EU are needed to enable candidate countries that are not yet EU members but are in accession negotiations to become part of the EU Prosecutor’s Office, which focuses exclusively on criminality related to European funds. The approach almost institutionalized in the EU of “gradual membership” also envisages membership in certain EU bodies without yet having full membership rights. The EPPO investigating and prosecuting directly in Albania and other countries in the region aligns with the EU’s insistence on the rule of law and the fight against corruption.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti put forward this idea in 2024 during a BE/Balkans summit in Tivat, Montenegro. Later, the leader of the opposition in Albania, Sali Berisha, also advanced the idea.

In any case, it is the candidate countries that must officially request to join EPPO. In our country, as long as Edi Rama is Prime Minister, this is unlikely to happen—according to the saying that the turkey does not vote for Christmas. But it would be a meaningful effort by the opposition and civil society to lobby European institutions and member states to move in this direction. Progress toward funds and the closure of negotiation chapters should also be conditioned on readiness to join the EPPO. Fulfilling this effort would have far more meaning and value for a European Albania than the provisional and formalistic closure of chapters that we saw a few days ago.

*President of Paneuropa-Albania