Kövesi targets Greece over €2.6 billion obstruction

Laura Codruța Kövesi, the EU's chief prosecutor, formally notified the European Commission on May 22 that Greece is obstructing her office, invoking the bloc's budget-conditionality regulation (the EU's tool for suspending funds when rule-of-law violations threaten EU finances) for the first time against a government allied with Commission President von der Leyen (EPPO, Adevărul). Every previous use of this tool targeted governments politically opposed to the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) that dominates EU institutions. Greece's ruling New Democracy belongs to the EPP.

Two Moves, One Target

Kövesi's letter identifies two Greek actions she says violate the EU Treaty's "sincere cooperation" obligation (Digi24).

The first is legislative. Justice Minister Georgios Floridi pushed through parliament on May 19 an amendment creating fast-track criminal procedures exclusively for sitting MPs. Investigation timelines are halved; trials must begin within three months (Epiloges). The provision arrived inside an inheritance-law bill, with no consultation with the EPPO (the European Public Prosecutor's Office, the EU body that investigates crimes against the EU budget). Floridi argued the amendment reinstates a measure that existed from 2014 to 2019 and does not alter EPPO competences.

The second is judicial. Greece's Supreme Judicial Council renewed the mandates of three Greek EPPO prosecutors for only two years, overriding the five-year term the EPPO's own governing college had set in November 2025 (Protothema).

While the government dismisses both moves as routine domestic procedure, Kövesi treats them as coordinated obstruction.

Why €2.68 Billion Explains the Friction

The standoff maps directly onto active investigations. The EPPO has 175 active cases in Greece covering an estimated €2.68 billion in suspected damage to the EU budget (EPPO). The largest cluster involves OPEKEPE, Greece's agricultural payments agency, where the office has asked parliament to lift immunity for governing-party MPs linked to subsidy fraud involving fabricated land claims and inflated production data.

Separately, the EPPO is probing contracts for two migrant camps, Malakasa and Sintiki, awarded without public tender in 2020 at costs vastly exceeding comparable EU-funded facilities (Le Monde).

Greece is not alone in resisting the EPPO. Bulgaria suspended a prosecutor; Slovenia delayed nominations; Romania faced political meddling. But Greece is the first country where the friction has escalated to a formal conditionality notification.

The Selective Enforcement Test

The conditionality regulation has been activated once before, against Hungary, where the EU froze billions in cohesion funds (CER). That target was a government openly hostile to Brussels. Greece is different: it sits inside the EPP alliance that controls the Commission.

The pattern shows in parliament. When MEPs adopted their first-ever rule-of-law resolution on Greece in February 2026, the EPP refused to negotiate or vote for it. The Social Democrats noted the EPP joins such resolutions only "in non-EPP governed countries" (S&D Group).

The Commission can now open formal proceedings, launch a softer infringement case, or pursue quiet diplomacy. With a political ally, the instinct favours the third option. A pending case before the EU Court of Justice (C-225/24) could narrow that room: if the Court rules that conditionality decisions are subject to full judicial review, a Commission choice to look the other way on Greece could itself be challenged in Luxembourg (Verfassungsblog).

The EU built this enforcement tool for adversaries. Kövesi just pointed it at a friend.