“There is no news in the speech of the European Prosecutor General Laura Koveshi yesterday (on May 17, Sunday – note ed.) to bTV that with the participation of the national government in 2020 Teodora Georgieva was selected as a European prosecutor from Bulgaria despite the ranking of the Selection Committee”. Thus, until recently, the acting Minister of Justice and a long-time member of the Anti-Corruption Fund (AKF) team Andrey Yankulov commented on Köveshi’s statement in the program “120 Minutes”, pointing to the office “Borisov 3”, but also to responsibility from the Council of the EU.
In his words, this is publicly known information since 2021 and it does not concern only Bulgaria, “which is spared to the viewers”.
Köveshi: Teodora Georgieva admitted that she was on the recording, 24 independent prosecutors unanimously found that she had committed inadmissible violations
How is a European public prosecutor appointed by each member state?
Yankulov explains on Facebook the procedure for the appointment of the European prosecutors – one from each member state, who becomes part of the College of the European Prosecutor’s Office in Luxembourg (Article 16 of the Council Regulation on establishing enhanced cooperation to establish a European Prosecutor’s Office):
- A national stage which is under the control of the respective country and is not regulated at the European level, as a result of which the country sends three candidates to
- The selection committee of independent experts at the EU level, which ranks them and gives an opinion to
- The Council of the EU, which appoints one of the candidates by a simple majority, being bound by the opinion of the Selection Committee, but only if it is negative for a candidate.
Photo: Teodora Georgieva, BGNES
Not only with Bulgaria
“Back in 2021, there was a scandal in the European Parliament with the election of some European prosecutors, because the Council did not take into account the ranking of the Selection Committee in three cases. The Parliament then demanded all the documentation related to the nominations of the candidates from Belgium, Bulgaria and Portugal. In a publication of “Yuraktiv” on the subject it is said (unfortunately, it is no longer found, it is most likely taken down, but I have referred to it in the past years, including in the annual monitoring report of the ACF of 2025, page 108) that “in the case of Belgium, Bulgaria and Portugal, however, the decisions of the Selection Committee were overruled by ministerial decision and in the end candidates who were not the first choice were nominated”. There are also publications in Bulgarian internet media on the subject, but this never becomes news,” writes Yankulov.
“What (if anything) has been presented by the Council to the Parliament, I do not know, nor has there been any development on the subject for any of the European prosecutors of the three targeted countries. What I can say is that the correspondence between national governments and the Council on the subject is of course available, but classified by the Council itself as confidential. Therefore, if it should be asked of anyone, it is precisely the Council, not the national government. And the Council owes transparency in all cases, especially since this information is shared selectively,” he adds.
“This is just one important point from the interview of Laura Kyoveshi. It actually raises many more questions about the disciplinary proceedings against Teodora Georgieva, and about the operation of the Bulgarian office of the European Prosecutor’s Office for the entire period of its existence, than it gives answers,” believes Andrey Yankulov.
In the interview, Köveshi said that the request for Teodora Georgieva’s release was the result of serious disciplinary violations, not pressure from investigations she was working on. In her words – in the public space, an implication was deliberately created that action was taken against the Bulgarian European Prosecutor because of an attempt to “do her job”, while the real reasons for her removal were completely different. The European Chief Prosecutor made it clear that the disciplinary procedure is related to the video that appeared in the spring of 2025, in which Georgieva was filmed in conversation with the wanted former investigator Petyo Petrov – Euroto.
Source: Actualno
