The first European Public Prosecutor Laura Kövesi told N1 that she had a short conversation with Serbian Public Prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac, refuting claims that they had an official meeting as claimed by her Serbian counterpart.

Kovesi said that they only spoke for a few minutes at a seminar. „I can say that it was not exactly a meeting. We met at a seminar organized by the European Investment Bank on the occasion of the International day of anti-corruption. So we spoke for few minutes. And we spoke about the challenges of prosecutors,“ Kovesi, former chief prosecutor of Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate, said.

Dolovac told Belgrade daily Blic that she had a meeting with Kovesi at the signing of an agreement on cooperation between the Serbian Republic Public Prosecutor and the European Investment Bank in combatting the misuse of European funds and corruption in December last year.

„She was present as the newly-appointed European Public Prosecutor and we discussed cooperation between the Republic Public Prosecutor and European Public Prosecutor as a body of the European Union,“ Dolovac said at the time. She claimed to have invited Kovesi to visit Serbia and the prosecution which, Dolovac said, she accepted.

Kovesi told N1 that she believes that there are a lot of good prosecutors and judges in the Western Balkans but did not want to comment on whether they are independent or not.“I am sure they are very good prosecutors in those states. I don’t know if they are independent or not, or if they are allowed to do their job or not. I cannot comment because I don’t know. But I am sure that there are a lot of good prosecutors, because in my previous activities I met a lot of prosecutors and judges from those member states and I saw that they are professionals,“