Court rejects EU auditors’ bid to shield officials from interviews in institutional clash

(CN) — The EU’s second-highest court said Wednesday a governmental spending watchdog could not stop prosecutors from questioning a dozen of its officials in a criminal probe, in what legal analysts said was an important case for the bloc’s balance of powers.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, or EPPO, brought the challenge after the European Court of Auditors refused to lift confidentiality obligations that prevented 12 officials from being interviewed as witnesses in a criminal investigation tied to the recruitment of one of its own officials. The investigation was opened in 2022 after prosecutors received information from the EU’s anti-fraud agency about possible irregularities in the hiring process.

Created in 2021, the EPPO investigates fraud, corruption and other crimes affecting EU finances, including cases that may lead back into the EU’s own institutions. The Court of Auditors, meanwhile, serves as the bloc’s spending watchdog, scrutinizing how taxpayer money is used.

Auditors argue that allowing the interviews could interfere with unresolved immunity questions involving people under investigation and would not be in the interests of the European Union. But the General Court of the European Union disagreed, finding that witness requests could not simply be folded into a separate dispute over immunity.

According to the EU judges, “‘interests of the Union’ which may justify a refusal of permission to disclose in legal proceedings work-related information must necessarily be interests of considerable importance which are vital to the European Union.”

That reading caught the attention of EU law scholars.

Jacob Öberg, a professor of EU law at the University of Southern Denmark, said the ruling makes clear that EU institutions cannot rely on broad procedural concerns to avoid cooperating with witness requests from prosecutors. He said the decision narrows the circumstances in which institutions can invoke internal confidentiality rules to resist investigations.

Others focused less on the outcome than on the message it sends to EU institutions.

John Vervaele, an emeritus professor of European criminal law at Utrecht University, said the ruling reinforces the idea that EU institutions are expected to cooperate with investigations rather than stand in their way. He said auditors blurred the line between immunity questions and witness testimony, leading them to apply the wrong test.

For Vervaele, the case ultimately turned on a simple point: Blocking testimony from the 12 officials required a genuinely vital EU interest.

The court took much the same view. The judges also warned that accepting the auditors’ position would effectively allow EU institutions to shape the scope of criminal investigations by deciding what evidence prosecutors could access. Instead, the court stressed that “it is in the very interests of the European Union to allow the EPPO to gather evidence throughout the investigation.”

Michele Caianiello, a professor of criminal procedure at the University of Bologna, said he viewed the case as a test of where the balance should lie between institutional autonomy and effective criminal investigations. Before the ruling, he warned that “an EPPO unable to secure meaningful cooperation from other Union bodies risks being ineffective precisely where effective investigations may be most needed,” while an overly powerful prosecutor’s office could transform a system built on cooperation between EU institutions into one marked by supervision and hierarchy.

For Caianiello, “the real challenge for the General Court is therefore not simply to decide who wins this case, but to identify where the proper constitutional balance lies.”

After reading the judgment, Caianiello said the court largely met that challenge. He called it “quite a significant victory for the EPPO” while noting that judges were “careful not to suggest that the EPPO occupies a superior position vis-à-vis the Court of Auditors.”

The judges also rejected an attempt by auditors to have the case dismissed before reaching the merits. They found prosecutors remained entitled to seek evidence and noted that no final decision refusing immunity had ever been formally adopted.

Luisa Marin, an EU law researcher at the University of Insubria and visiting fellow at the European University Institute, said the decision “will bear a legacy in the consolidation of the rule of law in the context of the European Union legal order,” adding that it strengthens the prosecutor’s office in its dealings with other EU institutions and helps define how those relationships will develop going forward.

Although the judgment focuses on the witness dispute, she noted that the underlying investigation was opened after OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, reported suspected fraud involving former Court of Auditors President Klaus-Heiner Lehne, who led the institution from 2016 to 2022.

Transparency International EU also welcomed the decision. Giulia Cantalupi, the group’s policy officer for illicit financial flows, said, “Today’s ruling confirms what will already be apparent to any EU citizen: No European institution is above the law.”

The organization called the judgment an important accountability precedent and said it reinforces the principle that EU institutions cannot use internal rules or confidentiality safeguards to obstruct criminal investigations.

Neither institution immediately offered a detailed response. The Court of Auditors said it would analyze the judgment and “draw the necessary conclusions,” while reiterating its commitment to cooperate with prosecutors. The prosecutor’s office said it was studying the ruling and would publish a statement later.

EPPO won access to a potential source of evidence, but not the larger fight. The ruling clears the way for testimony from 12 officials while leaving unresolved the separate standoff over immunity for those under investigation. The Court of Auditors may now take the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union, with any appeal due within two months and 10 days of notification.

Courthouse News reporter Eunseo Hong is based in the Netherlands.