The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), based in Luxembourg City, on Tuesday announced that it will take an ongoing investigation into the Pirate Party over from the Luxembourg State Prosecutor.
The investigation into procurement fraud allegations began in the wake of a spring 2023 audit and subsequent Luxembourg Times and Luxemburger Wort investigation this summer. The investigation is also looking into alleged document forgery and money laundering.
EPPO is the EU’s independent public prosecution office. Its purview is to investigate and prosecute crimes against the financial interest of the EU.
The European institution became involved as 45% of the €200,000 Malt project came from EU funding. The national government contributed the same amount, while the remaining 10% came from private funding.
Inadmissible invoices
The Pirate Party and several of its key members were awarded two contracts by the National Reception Office (Office National de l’Accueil – ONA) in 2016 and 2017 that included the creation of a Luxembourgish language app, called “Mobile Assisted Language Tool” (Malt), to help Syrian refugees. The investigation centres on expenses and accounting anomalies surrounding the app.
Also read:Pirate app case referred to court of auditors and prosecutor
The party was paid around €135,000 out of €207,000 for two contracts to develop the app. Malt translated basic words and phrases from Arabic to Luxembourgish to help refugees, predominantly from Syria, settle in the country and was part of Luxembourg’s response to the 2015 refugee crisis.
An audit by the Finance Inspectorate (IGF) found that around €96,000 worth of invoices were “inadmissible” and shouldn’t have been refunded.
Also read:Pirates blurred lines between party and private commercial interests
That led the ONA to attempt to retrieve the money from the Pirate Party, which refused to refund the state in December.
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Publish date : 2024-10-22 02:22:00
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