nearly six months on from covid cases starting to be reported in yemen, the bbc has become the first international broadcaster to reach there and gauge the impact of the virus. yemen is divided between the houthi group based in the north and an internationally recognised government in the south. there are reports that the british government is planning new legislation which could override elements of the brexit agreement signed last year with the european union relating to northern ireland. it's thought this might potentially derail the prospects of a last—minute trade deal between britain and the eu. tennis, and novak djokovic has been disqualified from the us open in new york after accidentally hitting a linejudge. it happened in his fourth—round match against spain's pablo carreno busta. in a statement, the world number one said he was extremely sorry for what had happened. he has to forfeit all prize money for the tournament. now on bbc news, hardtalk.

welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. the eu is thought to have lost more than ten billion euros to fraud over the last two decades, and yet its anti—fraud and corruption agencies have long lacked the teeth to root out the problem. could that be about to change? well, my guest is romanian laura kovesi, the eu's first public prosecutor. she has enhanced powers to tackle transnational crime. but if member states refuse to play ball, how can she succeed?

laura kovesi in luxembourg, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much for the invitation. you have had almost a year since your appointment as the eu's first chief public prosecutor. you are trying to deal with a very urgent problem that costs the eu billions of euros. what have you actually done so far? i took my office in 1st of november and i started to organise together with the small team that i founded here to, in the beginning, the administrative issues that are necessary. to start the eppo, it's necessary to have the european prosecutors as those prosecutors who will work here with me in luxembourg. and also we need to have the european delegated prosecutors. the european delegated prosecutors is those prosecutors who will work

in their national member states. would you agree... ..would you agree with me that the problem is indeed very urgent? we are talking about the role of organised crime in siphoning off billions of euros from the agricultural funds, the cohesion funds right across the european union. some countries are particularly bad. and yet you're telling me after nine months, you really haven't begun work yet. you're just working out your administration. yes, it is necessary to have eppo, but to start working in the cases we need to build the new office. this means that we need to have all the internal regulation. we need to have all the prosecutors on board, and it's not a decision that only one person can take. it's a shared responsibility between the european commission, european parliament, the council and the national authorities of each member state participating to the european

public prosecutor office. did it worry you when you realised that some of the team you were supposed to lead were going to be part—time and that your total staffing appears to number some a0 to 50 in your central office, and then a bunch of local prosecutors in member countries who, at least according to the commission, were going to be working part—time? well, we speak here about the possibility for prosecutors to work full—time and part—time. my wish is to have only full—time prosecutors. this is very important for their independence, for their efficiency, for their responsibility. i cannot imagine how a european delegate prosecutor can work four hours for eppo, and during the pleading in the trial, he has to go and to continue this activity and to work for the national prosecutor office.

this is the reason why in my consultation with the member states, i insisted to have only full—time prosecutor. right, the fact that they were talking about pa rt—timers, it may be it's symptomatic of a problem at the heart of the eu, which is they've never really taken rooting out systematic corruption seriously. we can see that over many years. if we look at the scale of the problem and the response from the eu and their, in particular, their european anti—fraud office, olaf, we see that, time and again, investigations have been begun, but they've not led to prosecutions. it's a fundamental problem, isn't it? it is. the european public prosecutor will be the first prosecutor office at the european level. what we will achieve with that? we will have a unitary approach related to this phenomena. and in the same time, we will solve this issue related to the discrepancies between the member states. of course, in this period, i evaluated the statistics

and i saw there are some member state in which we have hundreds of cases in each year, but also we have some key member states where only two or nine investigations per year was made by the prosecutors. imean... with eppo, with our office, we will solve this issue. to be blunt about it, miss kovesi, it's clear that some member states are absolutely not serious about using the information that's been dug up by the eu's anti—corruption investigators. again, if one looks at the current situation with this olaf anti—fraud office at the eu, they launched 5m cases which they said should go to court. in fact, only 308 of them did, 171 of those were dismissed, and there were only 137 indictments. in other words, many member states are simply not interested in taking

seriously this problem. yes, having eppo, we will solve this issue because we will have the same priorities. but it's important to make a small comment related to olaf, and to explain that, until now, olaf did only administrative investigations. they did not make criminal investigation. only the prosecutor can do that. so eppo will be the only body at the european level who can make investigation. we will have prosecutors in all participating member states, and this is very important. when we speak about these phenomena, especially related to financialfraud, sometimes the prosecutor, the law informers... ..enforcement, are not focused on this type of criminality in the same way, in the equal way in all the member states. eppo will change that, so having the highest number

of investigations in some member states or less in another member state doesn't mean that we don't have problems. we cannot speak about usual suspects when we speak about the financial frauds. there are problems in all the member states and having eppo at the national level in each participating member state, it will be very good because we can increase the level of protection of the european funds, and of course we will investigate better and more efficiently these kinds of crimes. well, i think it's worth reminding people when you talk about the eppo, you mean the european... european public prosecutor office. exactly, so that's what you're leading. i think it's fair to say you got the job because of your pretty remarkable track record in romania, during your time leading the anti—corruption directorate in your home country, romania. i see that you led the campaign against a whole bunch

of senior politicians. the former prime minister, mr nastase, was convicted of corruption offences during your term, 14 former or current ministers, 43 parliamentarians, 260 local officials, all were subject to investigation during your time in romania. are you going to go for the big beasts across europe now in your newjob? of course, we will investigate financial frauds, we will investigate powerful people, but what is important to say is what i did in romania and what i will do here in eppo, i will not be alone. i will have the entire team with me, and this is very important. we will be prosecutors of 22 different member states and we will put together our experience, our knowledge, and we will investigate better this phenomena. but the problem... and together with them, i want to do a good job.

we'll get to the 22 states and why it's not more in a moment, butjust to focus on romania and whether you really made a difference. you were a controversial figure. you certainly took on some of the most powerful people in your country, but if one looks at the state of romania when you left the job, and you were fired by the government eventually, when you left, transparency international thought that romania was actually performing worse. it ranked 70th in the world in terms of corruption index in 2019. it was going backwards. it was the second most corrupt country in europe, just outdone by bulgaria. it doesn't seem, to be honest, that despite your best efforts, you made much difference. well, when we speak about to eradicate corruption or to reduce the level of corruption in one country, i think it's not the only responsibility of prosecutors. to fight with this phenomena, it is necessary to have

an entire effort. also the prosecutors, also to prevent corruption, also to have good laws and to offer... ..to offer enough instruments to prosecutors to investigate those crimes. it's important to say that also, the mentality under the entire society can contribute to decrease the level of corruption in a country. so not only arresting or investigating people, we can solve the issue of corruption in all member states. but what is important now is that we will have the european public prosecutor office of the european level, and we will use all the legal instruments that we have. and we will work better, because we will have also here in luxembourg at the central level financial investigation, investigators, case analysts, and together we can analyse, we can aggregate and put together all the dots when we speak about the cross—border crimes when we speak about corruption, and especially when we speak about financial criminals.

let me stop you a minute, because people across europe are going to be interested in how you're going to do thejob, and it is indeed notable that you had a certain reputation in romania for, let's say, pushing the envelope in terms of investigative practice. you, it seems, were prepared to use the intelligence services in a covert fashion to dig dirt on some of the suspects that you were going after. and in the romanian constitutional court, some of your methods were called into question. do you regret some of the methods you used? no, it's not about the methods. it's about the working arrangement that we had, but at that moment based on the legislation we received information from the secret services and we used those information to open the cases.

but it's important to say and to clarify that our investigations were made by the prosecutors and by the police officers, and no—one from the officials, from the secret service, did not work in our cases. only the prosecutors... i'll be honest with you... ..police officers. i'll be honest with you, i was very struck by a former romanian prime minister, mr tariceanu, saying that, under your watch, the anti—corruption agency had not respected legal frameworks, had become corrupt themselves and had become a part of the politicalfight in romania. some critics called you a part of securitate 2.0 because of your cooperation with the security services. again, i put it to you that if you bring those methods to your europe—wide prosecutor role, you're going to make many people very unhappy.

all our cases that we worked in romania were checked and verified in the courts. so at the european level, we will work according to the legislation, as i did it in romania all the time. and everything that the prosecutors did in the cases were checked in the courts byjudges. but with respect, the constitutional court in january 2019 concluded that you had created a parallel justice system existing outside the rules imposed by romania's constitution. are you going to...? there is not any decision of constitutional court saying that i created a parallel state in romania. i'm reading from one of their rulings of january 2019. now i know that, ultimately, charges against you were dropped, but nonetheless, it's a very serious allegation that you created a paralleljustice system. the question really is, do you believe that in prosecuting corruption and fraud that

the ends justify the means? if you read that decision based on which the constitutional court revoked me, i should say that i made a complaint to the european court for human rights, and in this year, in may, the judgment of the european court of human rights said that in that case, my rights were broken. so i don't know which kind of decision you quoted, but i can say that in entire my activity, i respected. i respected all the time the constitution. i respected the procedural criminal code and all the national laws. but when it comes to...

i'm just asking you a simple question now, when it comes to rooting out corruption, do you believe as an aggressive prosecutor that the ends do justify the means? no. all the time in my activity, i respected the law. and this is the only principle that i will have in the consideration and we should have in the consideration all the time, to respect the law. let me ask you, then, now that you've gone from a national role in romania to an eu—wide role rooting out corruption, what kind of cooperation do you think you're going to get from a country like hungary, which already has made it plain it's going to refuse to cooperate and play a part in the european public prosecutor office's system? they want no part of it, alongside some other nations, including poland, sweden, denmark, ireland, they basically opted out. and given that all of the allegations that we see about corruption and misuse of eu money in hungary, how are you going to be able to operate in hungary? we will operate based

on the regulation of the european public prosecutor office. based on this regulation, we can have working arrangement with non—participating member states, including hungary, and poland, sweden, denmark and ireland, and also with third countries, and we started already to reach out to have contacts with hungary and poland. we will continue with the other non—participating member states, and we will have working arrangement based on the international cooperation instruments that there are available for prosecutors in their activities. let me ask you this. hungary and poland are countries that receive huge amounts of eu funds in structural and cohesion funding terms. why do you think, as an experienced prosecutor, they might be keen to opt out of the public prosecutor office's system?

we will work with our colleagues based on the legal instruments that we will have. it is very difficult to say that we can investigate everything that it will happen in hungary because they... in hungary and poland, because they will not be part of the european public process. i'm asking you why. why, miss kovesi, why do you think that they've opted out? can you imagine? it is a political decision, i cannot comment. i am a prosecutor, i can comment only based on my activity. i cannot answer why a member state did not accept to be part of the eppo or not. well, let me ask you a more specific question, then. i've just been looking at some of the olaf investigations in hungary, what they discovered, and the paperwork has been leaked so we know it's directly from olaf. they discovered that there were, for example, street lighting contracts which were funded by the european union, which it seems had been

irregular in the way that they had been tendered for. a company that was very close to a close relative of the hungarian prime minister won these contracts. olaf, as you've said in this interview, certainly wasn't capable of launching criminal proceedings itself. in the future, if that kind of thing happens in hungary, will you be able to launch criminal proceedings? yes or no? we can launch proceedings only in those cases where together with, let's say, take an example, an hungarian person is involved, also a person from a participating member state, or if part of activity is committed on the territory of a participating member state. otherwise, all the information that we will have, we have to send in hungary. so i'm just wondering what really has changed.

from the very beginning of this interview, you've told me, you know, this is a big new eu initiative, we've created a new office to really get serious about anti—corru ption and anti—fraud. but in the end, all of the cards are really still held by the member states, and your powers only go so far as you get cooperation from the member states, and if you don't get the cooperation, you can't really function. it's not exactly in this way. we will receive complaints directly here in luxembourg at central level. we can have the possibility to reallocate the investigations from a member state to another member state. and what is important is the quality. under europe, the professional list of the european delegated prosecutors that will work for eppo, the national authorities has to select those prosecutor and to propose to the european chief prosecutor to be appointed. but it's important to say that they will be independent

in their activity and they will make the investigations in these cases. also, it will be important because they will not be limited by the national borders. they can call... for example, a prosecutor from romania can call his colleagues from luxembourg to ask for information, to find some documents, to find some clues. and after that, the colleague from romania can use those clues directly in the investigations without it being necessary to make any other formalities. so everything will be more efficient, more quick, and in this way, we will protect better the european money. the truth, though, if you read reports over many years from transparency international, from the organised crime and corruption reporting project and other ngos, is that eu monies have been siphoned off and have entered the hands of the criminal,

organised criminal elements, including, we know, the mafia, and other extremely powerful organisations. we also know that, in certain countries, this involves very powerful people close to political power, so—called oligarchs as well. do you really believe that you have both the power and the political backing to take these forces on? we will investigate, of course, all the crimes related to the organised crime. and it's not necessary to have a political backup because eppo will be an independent prosecutor office. the prosecutor will be independent, so we need to do our work. we need to win the trust of the citizens and we need to prove that the law is equal for everybody. and this will be the role of eppo, to investigate also the powerful group of people and to use all the legal means that we have to finalise our investigations.

i'm tempted to ask you, miss kovesi, how strong is your will on this matter? i know in romania, you took on powerful forces and you faced personal threats. you know what it means to be under a great deal of pressure. but it seems to me that pressure, as yourjob is now across europe, that pressure may get even more intense. i'm used to work with pressure. it's not any problem for me and i'm sure that it will not be a problem for the other colleagues for eppo. there will be only good prosecutors here, very courageous, very professional, so we will work together asa team. and i am sure that we will achieve what we want. so it's not any problem if we will have some pressure. are you really sure about that? you said in a recent interview, "corruption can be defeated. do not abandon this fight." experience across the eu would say that rooting out systemic corruption, which has cost billions

of euros to the european union, it's an impossible job. nobody‘s achieved it before. it's not impossible. we have to do ourjob and we have to fight, but to eradicate corruption, it's important not to rely all the time only on the work of prosecutors. it is the same with the financial criminality. we have to work together in a team with the other european institutions, with the national authorities, with the entire society, because, in the end, each citizen can be a part in this fight and can help the prosecutors to fight with this criminality. laura kovesi, ithank you very much indeed forjoining me from luxembourg. thank you.

hello there. on sunday, we had quite a bit of cloud that developed through the afternoon, notably across parts of eastern england, where we had showers, especially for yorkshire and also parts of lincolnshire, bringing us some rain here through the course of the afternoon. now, talking of rain, we've got more of that on the way right now, with rain already spreading into scotland and northern ireland. here, it's going to turn increasingly windy over the next few hours. but for many of us at least, temperatures holding up into double figures as we head into the first part of monday. now, the rain is all associated with this area of low pressure that's up near iceland. weather fronts pushing into high pressure and weakening as they reach towards the south—east. and that means, actually, we'll see rain across northern and western areas, where it's going

to be quite windy. but through the day on monday, it will probably stay dry, with sunshine across the south—east of england, turning increasingly hazy. so, this is how the charts look through monday. you can see the rain spreading from scotland and northern ireland, into the north of england, across wales. but after a sunny start elsewhere in england, yes, it will tend to cloud over, with the best of any sunshine through the afternoon hanging on across east anglia and south east england, where it will be relatively warm, with temperatures into the low 20s. brighter skies, eventually, late in the day, edging into the far north—west. now, for tuesday, we have another weather front crossing the uk. this one bringing a broad warm sector. and this wadge of warm air will be pushing right the way across the country, so it will start to feel a little bit more humid. mind you, it's also likely going to be quite cloudy, particularly across western areas, with the cloud thick enough for some patches of drizzle around some of our coasts and hills, particularly through the morning. a little bit of rain at times across the north—west as well, but where we do see some cloud breaks, and a bit of sunshine coming through, it certainly will feel on the warm side. and actually, for many of us, those temperatures will lift

into the low 20s on tuesday. tuesday promises to be the warmest day of the week. now, that warmer air is going to get shoved southwards as a cold front moves in. now, this boundary is the cold front. it's going to be bringing cloud across england and wales, with outbreaks of rain. again, the rain not really amounting to too much across south—east england. it is a weak front. but eventually, we'll get fresher air blowing into the northern half of the uk. sunshine, a few showers in the north—west. temperatures for most of us into the mid—to—high teens, so feeling pleasant in the sunshine. but across the south—east, before the front arrives, we'll still see temperatures running into the low 20s for wednesday afternoon. that's your latest weather.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm sally bundock. fears trade talks could collapse as the uk government plans to over—turn parts of its brexit withdrawal deal. hundreds of holidaymakers trapped by raging wildfires in the us state of california are air—lifted to safety. a public inquiry begins looking into the manchester terror attack where 22 people lost their lives. no title for novak — the serbian tennis player is disqualified from the us open after accidentally hitting a line—judge.