Brussels, Feb. 4, 2021 (Lusa) - Portugal's minister for justice said on Thursday that she would continue to clarify the European Public Prosecutor until she is hoarse, during another presentation of the Portuguese presidency's priorities at the European Parliament marked by this controversy.

The hearing in the Parliamentary Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) of minister Francisca Van Dunem and minister for internal administration, Eduardo Cabrita, to present the programme of the presidency of the Council of the EU in their respective areas, was marked by further heated discussion surrounding the appointment of Portuguese magistrate José Guerra to the European Public Prosecutor's Office, even leading the committee's chairman, Spaniard Juan Fernando López Aguilar, to say "enough is enough".

In his opening speech, Van Dunem began with "a note" on the subject of European Public Prosecutors, even before re-presenting the priorities for justice - she had already done so on 27 January before the EP's Legal Affairs Committee - to announce that she had acted on the request made to her on Tuesday by López Aguilar.

She said she had received a communication from Aguilar at the end of Tuesday calling on the Council, under the principle of sound and loyal cooperation, to provide information on the procedure for appointing European Public Prosecutors from Portugal, Belgium and Bulgaria - the three Member States which had appointed Public Prosecutors who were not the first choices made by the Committee of European Experts - and that she had already taken steps to ensure that all information reached the EP "as soon as possible".

"I asked the relevant Council bodies yesterday [Wednesday] to take the necessary action quickly so that Parliament is provided with all the information and documentation appropriate to the understanding of the whole process. I know that the procedures have started - I made sure of that only yesterday - and I hope that the information can be made available to Parliament as soon as possible", she said.

She reiterated that the European Public Prosecutor's Office was one of the priorities of the Portuguese presidency and said that "the entry into office of the Public Prosecutor's Office on 1 March is critical", considering it "essential" that it "is fully established and operational as soon as possible to protect the financial interests of the Union, taking into account the important resources that will be used" under the EU's recovery plan.

The first question in the Q&A session fell to Portuguese CDS-PP Nuno Melo MEP, who criticised the whole process leading up to José Guerra's appointment, namely the "change of criteria in the competition", which he believes violated the principle of equality between candidates, and "the lies, not lapses" in the documentation sent to Brussels.

"I ask you if you do not understand the profoundly abnormal significance of all this. And, by the way, what did the government find sinful about the candidate chosen by European experts, Ana Carla Almeida, and whether or not the fact that she was allegedly involved in the criminal investigation of members of that government had anything to do with the appointment of another candidate", he asked the minister.

After having already warned the MEP that he had exceeded his time, López Aguilar asked that the presidency's priorities be addressed, noting that "this is already the third debate" on the Prosecutor's Office, which had been raised at the hearing of the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs on 26 January and a single agenda item at a joint hearing the following day, 27 January, with the Committees on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and Budgetary Control, in which Van Dunem also participated.

After Nuno Melo, Socialist Isabel Santos MEP took the floor, commenting that "in fact, it is not worth remembering that this hearing is about the presidency's priorities in the area of justice and not about the European Public Prosecutor's Office in particular because what happens is that the European People's Party [which includes the delegations of the PSD and CDS] is interested neither in the functioning of the European Public Prosecutor's Office nor in the Portuguese priorities for the area of justice".

"The European People's Party (EPP) is solely and exclusively interested in creating cases and conducting a disinformation campaign," he said, prompting an outraged reaction from Dutch Jeroen Lenaers MEP, who considered the accusation "unacceptable" and requested the intervention of the chairman of the committee.

With Dutch Sophia in't Veld MEP of the Renovar a Europa (Liberals) group also arguing that further clarification was needed, López Aguilar, a Spanish member of the Socialist and Democrat group, stressed that the issue of European public prosecutors' appointments had been discussed too much, "in particular the Portuguese candidate", he noted that Nuno Melo had spent his entire speech on the issue, and then commented that "enough is enough".

In his final speech, Van Dunem recalled that the session was devoted to the Portuguese presidency's priorities in the area of justice, but said that she would provide clarifications as long as necessary.

"I will speak on this matter until my voice is heard and until what has been done in Portugal is understood", she said.

"I think that Nuno Melo certainly does not question the autonomy of the High Council of the Public Prosecution Service, which organised the internal selection process. He also knows that it was the Portuguese parliament, with votes from all parties, that approved the internal selection procedure for the candidates," she said, concerning the fact that the unsuccessful candidate is responsible for investigating a case involving members of the government, "has absolutely nothing to do with one thing or the other".

ACC/ADB // ADB.

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