Croatia takes over EU corruption probe of ex-minister

Croatia’s prosecutors on Tuesday said they were taking over a corruption investigation into a former health minister who was already being probed by their European Union peers.

Former health minister Vili Beros, sacked by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic immediately after he was arrested last week on corruption allegations, had been named as a suspect in a separate EU graft probe.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Zagreb placed eight people, including Beros, under investigation on suspicion of accepting and offering bribes, abuse of position and money laundering.

The scheme to secure “undue financial gains” by procuring medical equipment for public hospitals included projects financed by the EU’s funds, EPPO said in a statement.

European prosecutors expected their Croatian peers to hand them the case, EPPO’s delegated prosecutor Tomislav Kamber had said.

But Croatia’s state attorney general, Ivan Turudic, on Tuesday decided that the national anti-graft prosecutors would take over the case.

The national bureau for the fight against organised crime and corruption (USKOK) is “competent to act” against the former minister and others, the state attorney’s office said in a statement.

EPPO “failed to act in line with the principle of loyal cooperation” and inform Croatian authorities about the investigation, the statement said, especially given that acts relating to EU funds represent only a “minor part of the overall criminal activities” of the suspects.

Meanwhile, President Zoran Milanovic said the EPPO should have continued and completed the investigation.

The corruption within the government “is revealed only when the investigation is launched by European prosecutors,” he said on Facebook, labelling it a “shame for Croatia”.

But for Plenkovic, the decision was expected, as national and European prosecutors “should cooperate”.

“According to our information, there was no damage to the European budget,” he told reporters.

Croatia has long struggled to contain rampant corruption and the health sector has been infamous for the bribing of doctors.

Many public hospital doctors work in parallel at private clinics, where they often channel their patients and where they can charge fees, causing widespread public annoyance.

Since taking power in 2016, several ministers from the prime minister’s conservative HDZ party have stepped down amid graft allegations.