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The EU’s former foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, has resigned from her role as head of the elite College of Europe after being indicted in a corruption investigation.
In a statement sent to college staff on Thursday, Mogherini announced that “in line with the utmost rigour and fairness with which I always carried out my duties, today I decided to resign as rector of the College of Europe”.
She also announced she would stand down as director of the EU Diplomatic Academy, the school for junior diplomats at the centre of an inquiry into alleged fraud and corruption.
Prosecutors say they have “strong suspicions” that confidential information was shared with one of the candidates taking part in the tender to set up the academy. It was launched in 2023 at the College of Europe with a budget of nearly €1m.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the EU prosecuting agency that issued formal changes against Mogherini and two others this week, said the accusations involved “procurement fraud and corruption, conflict of interest and violation of professional secrecy”.
It added: “All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty by the competent Belgian courts of law.”
Mogherini’s lawyer, Mariapaola Cherchi, told the Associated Press that her client was “transparent, clear and serene” during her 10-hour questioning, and she was confident Mogherini would be cleared.
Mogherini served as the EU’s high representative for foreign policy from 2014-19 before being appointed rector of the College of Europe, the prestigious postgraduate school for EU studies with campuses in Bruges, Natolin and Tirana.
She began a second five-year term in September. A press release about her reappointment lauded her role in establishing the EU Diplomatic Academy “to train a future generation of European-minded diplomats”.
The case is examining whether the College of Europe had inside information that allowed it to secure the tender.
The contract was awarded by the EU’s foreign service in 2021-22. Stefano Sannino, the top civil servant at the European External Action Service (EEAS) from 2021-24, has also been formally accused.
Sannino went on to lead the European Commission’s department for the Middle East, north Africa and the Gulf. The commission said on Thursday he was “no longer active in his function”.
“In light of the allegations brought forward by the EPPO … [he] has offered to take leave until the end of the year, when he will retire as planned,” the commission said, noting the presumption of innocence.
Sannino, in a letter to staff announcing his departure, first reported by the Euractiv website, said he was “confident in the work of the magistrates and confident that everything will be clarified”.
The investigation, which included raids on the EEAS headquarters in Brussels and on Mogherini’s home, is likely to be seized on by critics of EU policies at home and abroad.
The US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, retweeted an article about the case, noting that Mogherini was “the same person, incidentally, who characterised communist Cuba as a ‘one-party democracy’ and fostered European investment, tourism and trade that propped up the island’s repressive and stridently anti-American regime”.
He was referring to the 2016 edition of the EEAS’s annual report on human rights and democracy, released during Mogherini’s tenure, which described Cuba as a “one-party democracy”, where elections took place at municipal, regional and national level. The report also noted the increased harassment and jailing of political opponents and restrictions on freedom of speech.
