Former EU top diplomat Mogherini held in fraud probe

The EU’s former foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is taken into custody after police staged raids probing a suspected fraud scheme involving the training of European diplomats.

Mogherini, who was high representative for foreign affairs from 2014 to 2019, now leads the College of Europe graduate school whose premises were searched along with the offices of the EEAS diplomatic service.

The 52-year-old Italian is arrested in Brussels along with the training school’s deputy head, and Stefano Sannino, a senior EU official who was EEAS secretary general from 2021 to 2024, according to a source close to the matter.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) announces searches were staged at the College of Europe, in the Belgian city of Bruges, and at the Brussels premises of the European External Action Service — the EU’s diplomatic wing.

“Three suspects were detained” in connection with the raids, as “part of a probe into suspected fraud related to EU-funded training for junior diplomats,” says an EPPO statement.

Carried out by Belgian federal police at the EPPO’s request, the searches also targeted the houses of suspects, prosecutors say.

At issue, according to the EPPO, is a nine-month training program for junior diplomats across EU states, known as the European Union Diplomatic Academy.

The program was awarded by the EEAS to the College of Europe in Belgium in the period 2021-2022, and the probe focuses on whether the tender process was skewed to favor the school.

Mogherini is the head of both the College of Europe and of the EU Diplomatic Academy.