{"id":7053,"date":"2026-05-23T13:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T10:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=7053"},"modified":"2026-05-23T13:41:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T10:41:00","slug":"adonis-georgiades-v-covesi-the-european-parliament-blocked-the-waiver-of-immunity-of-an-eppo-mep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=7053","title":{"rendered":"Adonis Georgiades v. Covesi: The European Parliament blocked the waiver of immunity of an EPPO MEP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"563\" data-end=\"746\">A response to the government&#8217;s criticism of its handling of the <strong data-start=\"649\" data-end=\"673\">European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office<\/strong> was given by Health Minister Adonis Georgiades via a post on X. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"750\" data-end=\"954\">The minister referred to the recent decision of the <strong data-start=\"798\" data-end=\"825\">European Parliament<\/strong> not to approve a request to lift the immunity of an MEP, which had been submitted by the <strong data-start=\"903\" data-end=\"911\">EPPO<\/strong> led by Laura Covesi. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"958\" data-end=\"1113\">According to him, this development shows that even at European level there are objections to the way the <strong data-start=\"1086\" data-end=\"1112\">European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office<\/strong> operates. <\/p>\n<h2 data-section-id=\"1rkqy8u\" data-start=\"1117\" data-end=\"1150\"> The post of Adonides Georgiades<\/h2>\n<p data-start=\"1154\" data-end=\"1648\"> &#8220;Because I see a lot of wailing and wailing here about the European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office and how &#8220;anti-European we are etc&#8221; I just remind you that the European Parliament just a few days ago rejected a request to waive the immunity of an MEP from the European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office. Can you imagine if we had rejected the requests for our colleagues what would have happened? And yet the European Parliament said no to Mrs Covesi because MEPs considered her investigation to be flawed and politically motivated. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1652\" data-end=\"1880\">Now you will tell me that the European Parliament is also moving anti-European&#8230;or that Ms. Covessi will cut off funding and from that&#8230;..we said <strong data-start=\"1795\" data-end=\"1803\">EPPO<\/strong> is a new institution and still has a long way to go to find its balance.&#8221; <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"el\" dir=\"ltr\">Since I see a lot of whining and wailing here about the European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office and how &#8220;anti-European we are etc.&#8221; I just remind you that the European Parliament just a few days ago rejected a request to lift the immunity of an MEP from the European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office. Can you imagine if we had&#8230; <\/p>\n<p> &#8211; Adonis Georgiadis (@AdonisGeorgiadi) May 23, 2026 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2 data-section-id=\"akotnu\" data-start=\"1884\" data-end=\"1917\"> The Case of Angelika Niebler <\/h2>\n<p data-start=\"1921\" data-end=\"2038\"> The <strong data-start=\"1923\" data-end=\"1944\">Adonis Georgiadis<\/strong> was particularly concerned about the case of the <strong data-start=\"1997\" data-end=\"2004\">EPLP MEP<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"2006\" data-end=\"2026\">Angelika Niebler<\/strong> of the CSU. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2042\" data-end=\"2203\">As reported, the <strong data-start=\"2059\" data-end=\"2084\">European Parliament<\/strong> in a secret ballot on 19 May 2026 did not approve her request to waive her immunity, despite a request by <strong data-start=\"2194\" data-end=\"2202\">EPPO<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2207\" data-end=\"2334\">The vote recorded <strong data-start=\"2229\" data-end=\"2248\">309 votes in favour<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"2250\" data-end=\"2262\">283 against<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"2267\" data-end=\"2280\">53 abstentions<\/strong>, but failed to garner the required majority. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2338\" data-end=\"2614\">The <strong data-start=\"2340\" data-end=\"2364\">European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office<\/strong> had called for immunity to be lifted from July 2025. The investigation concerned allegations that parliamentary assistants paid from European funds were used for personal affairs and activities related to the CSU party. <\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2618\" data-end=\"2801\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">According to <strong data-start=\"2647\" data-end=\"2655\">EPPO<\/strong>, the European Parliament&#8217;s decision creates a serious procedural obstacle, as the investigation cannot proceed beyond the preliminary stage. <\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\n    A response to the criticisms that the government is receiving for its handling of the European Public Prosecutor&#8217;s Office was given by &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}