The European Prosecutor’s Office in Bulgaria is an unwanted phenomenon

The European Prosecutor’s Office (EP) is an independent body of the European Union in charge of the investigation, the prosecution and the transfer of a court for crimes against the EU financial interests, which began work in 2021. It includes a total of 24 EU Member States, including Bulgaria. Each country broadcasts a European prosecutor and a predetermined quota European delegated prosecutors. These prosecutors are subordinated to the European Attorney General – Laura Kyoveshi. The EP headquarters is in Luxembourg, but the European delegated prosecutors themselves are working in the respective country that has broadcast them.

To the extent that there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the records, they delay Georgieva in a lack of independence, and this is what provokes the EP to start a check against it. The history of the creation of the EP in Bulgaria gives a look at the systematic attempts of the authorities to neutralize the investigation of corruption and other financial crimes.

Stranges around the choice of Theodora Georgieva

In 2018, the Ministry of Justice has a choice for Bulgarian European prosecutor, with the obligation of the state to propose three applications. Then the Minister was Tsetska Tsacheva from GERB. From the initially 9 candidates, three candidates were proposed to the EP Committee: Deciwawa πPoneva – then the ppoypop in the Coofi GPAspatipa (SGP), but at the beginning of 2020 Svetlane Shopova -Koleva – Popypop in the SGP and Teodopa Geopgieva – a ceddy in the admination of the Cofia – Coffi Gpad, but also a former prosecutor. Even then, the impression was the dropping out of prosecutors with a higher rank and more experience than the selected three.

Teodora Georgieva was not elected by the Independent EP selection committee. However, the Council of the European Union appointed precisely Georgieva at her meeting on July 22, 2020. The Ministers of the Member States were present at the meetings of the Council, and then the then Minister of Justice – Danail Kirilov of GERB was probably present at the specific meeting. Similar is the case with Belgium and Portugal, with a Portuguese deputy minister resigning because of this scandal. In February 2021, tensions arose over these appointments and the European Parliament requested all the documentation of the nominated candidates from the Council.

A group of law teachers from European universities wrote an open letter stating its indignation that the Council did not comply with the Independent EP selection kom. However, the approved candidates from the three countries, including the Bulgarian Georgieva, took their seats as European prosecutors.

Election of European delegated prosecutors – sabotage by the Geshev Prosecutor’s Office

The initial quota of Bulgaria was 10 people and at the end of 2020. The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) opened the first procedure for the selection of candidates. A total of 35 magistrates participated, with a diverse profile, and at the beginning of 2021 the Prosecutorial College of the SJC (PC of the SJC) with only one vote chose exactly 10 of them to submit for the final approval of the EP selection committee. In March 2021, the European Attorney General Kyoveshi rejected 6 of the 10 candidates mainly on arguments that they did not have the necessary experience. One group – because they are investigators and have no procedural experience, another group – because they are civil and administrative judges.

The return of 6 out of 10 proposed names breeds of tension between the EP and the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office. Although the requirements that the candidates should clearly meet significant experience in the criminal pursuit of crimes, it was neglected and more – the Bulgarian side asked for a meeting with the EP to clarify the requirements. The SJC PC initially reacted by denying the information about disapproval candidates, then refused to comment, and in June 2021 closed the procedure for the selection of European delegated prosecutors, which he did not possess.

The closure of the procedure is a violation of the Regulation to establish the European Prosecutor’s Office. Then Laura Kyoveshi visited Bulgaria and met with Ivan Geshev, which led to the opening of a new procedure by the SJC PC for the other vacancies. The SJC PC’s proposal until the EP in September 2022 was again for exactly six prosecutors, as much as the unfilled quota. Mrs. Kyoveshi rejected one of the candidates and the quota of Bulgaria remained unfilled.

In November 2022, only three more prosecutors were selected, with some of the appears showing a relatively low level and others withdrew in the process.

At the beginning of 2023, it became clear that the work of European delegated prosecutors was very difficult, despite the request that Bulgaria was generating high workload and needed more prosecutors. Against the backdrop of the unfilled quota of 15 people, in February 2023, reports of massive leaving prosecutors appeared, with three resignations and five others expressed informally wanting to return to Ivan Geshev. Supporters also did not want to work in this structure.

The possible explanations for the sudden desire of the delegated prosecutors to return to Ivan Geshev are three – to encourage prosecutors not to work in the EP against specific promises; threats against delegated prosecutors; or administrative difficulties that do not allow them to work normally.

The mass departments of European delegated prosecutors caused Laura Kyoveshi to send a sharp letter to Ivan Geshev, and with the Minister of Justice Krum Zarkov to have a conversation. It requested the Bulgarian state to support the planned audit of the Bulgarian service. Part of the inspection was aimed at working conditions and the working environment of the delegated prosecutors, and as a result, Kyoveshi asked the Bulgarian state to secure the work of European delegated prosecutors, including by providing them with an office premises, but also to provide them with investigative police officers. Thus, the European delegated prosecutors were formally provided by the building at 134 Rakovski Street, but it remains unoccupied to this day because of the inappropriate working conditions.

Following the conversations of Kyoveshi with Minister Zarkov and Ivan Geshev, prosecutors were stopped, but the Bulgarian office remained the need for technical and administrative security in order to be able to work satisfactorily, including by completing the quota and appointing police officers to investigate in an independent manner.

Also, in 2023, the EP complained to the Ministry of the Interior management that its employees did not fulfill the obligation to search an important building. Then again Laura Kovishi arrived in Bulgaria and met with Prime Minister Denkov, with the unfulfilled Prime Minister Maria Gabriel and Justice Minister Slavov. The then Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov assured the public that a check was carried out that the case was old and the Interior Ministry was already working great with the EP.

At present, the European delegated prosecutors are 12 of the required 15, and their place of work is in the building of the Sofia District Prosecutor’s Office of 23 Skobelev Blvd.

Why does that matter?

The details of administrative and technical provision of work are crucial in order for the body to be independent and to be able to achieve specific and visible results. However, it is apparent inaction and even the active counteraction of the Bulgarian authorities to provide normal conditions for the work of the service, which is still located in the building of the Sofia District Prosecutor’s Office. Just as it is not the investigator of the Attorney General to be physically located in his neighboring office, the EP must be separate and independent of the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office, as it should be. According to

The regulation on the creation of the EP she is not a dumb, the native of the yoke from the time and to be an external incidence. This will be a gap, if the incitement, the Opgans, the Slice and the Age of the Cyuza and the Departs and the Out of the Epo and the Ep. Performance on the income fittings.

In the spirit of the above, it is not surprising that in the early years of the EP work did not achieve impressive success in Bulgaria. It was not until 2024 and the beginning of this year that reports of more serious results appeared, which probably worried the networks for influence in the judiciary, despite the initial attempts to control this service.

At the beginning of February 2025, Teodora Georgieva stated that civil servants had been fired because of the EP cooperation, and the Ministry of Interior specifically created obstacles to investigations. Following these statements, the head of the Bulgarian service received threats, her mother died in unclear circumstances and followed compromising records for her appointment in 2020.

This caused another visit to Kyoveshi to Bulgaria, who asked for a security for Georgieva, and only a few days ago began a check against her and removed her from work. The doubts about the independence of Georgieva are increasingly substantiated, and given the tension surrounding its appointment – it is its approval by the EU Council, the participation of the GERB ministers in this process, and whether it has lobbied Petio Petrov – the euro before the former Justice Minister – should not be neglected.

The EP Office was created to preserve the EU financial interests, and insofar as Bulgaria is an EU member of these interests are ours and the state should actively assist in the service and it be facilitated in investigations. In the case of Bulgaria, nothing like this and possible explanation is that the financial interests of the EU are violated by higher political figures – only this would explain the increasingly obvious sabotage of the service, including the internal attack against Georgieva, as well as the attempts to control the EP even before its establishment.

The silence of the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office in the investigation of networks for influence is increasingly delicate.