The EPPO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The EESC was informed by OLAF yesterday that this case has been transmitted to the EPPO,” an EESC spokesperson told POLITICO.
“Under these circumstances, the EESC cannot comment further except to re-confirm that when these matters first arose, the EESC president immediately and proactively referred the allegations to OLAF. The EESC will continue to respect fully the independence of this process.” Séamus Boland of Ireland was elected president in October 2025.
“The EESC and its senior leadership take this matter very seriously and remain fully committed to integrity, transparency and accountability,” the spokesperson added.
The EPPO has significantly stronger enforcement powers than OLAF. Whereas OLAF conducts administrative investigations, the EPPO investigates crimes against the financial interests of the EU, and can search private homes or seize evidence.
OLAF has also been investigating a report that EESC executives tried to smoke out a staff whistleblower who raised the alarm about the funding concerns, the EU Ombudsman told POLITICO.
Anonymous letters, seen by POLITICO, say that IT workers at the EESC were asked by senior managers to identify which staffers had connected to the OLAF website in previous weeks.
The EESC said those anonymous letters contained “serious personal threats” and added that they were not made through the EESC’s “robust formal whistleblower process.”