European Commissioner for Justice Věra Jourová | Olivier Hoslet/EPA EU’s Jourová wants funds linked to new prosecutor’s office European public prosecutor to be signed off by 20 governments.

If you want EU money, you'll have to submit to the jurisdiction of a new European public prosecutor — that's the message from European Commissioner for Justice Věra Jourová.

If the Czech commissioner gets her way, governments who refuse to sign up to the new pan-European law enforcement body charged with investigating and prosecuting cross-border VAT fraud won’t be eligible for EU cohesion funds, which are worth €63.4 billion between 2014 and 2020, in the next budget cycle that starts in 2021.

Justice ministers from 20 EU countries will on Thursday sign up to the new European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), which was first proposed in 2000 but has been delayed by discussions about potential EU interference in national criminal justice systems.

"I will be a strong promoter of having EPPO as one of the pre-conditionalities for the future financial budget," Jourová said in an interview with a small group of reporters.

The Netherlands, Sweden, Malta, Hungary and Poland are not participating (the U.K., Ireland and Denmark have an automatic opt-out from EU justice initiatives) but Jourová hopes to secure their backing by linking the project to EU funding.

"It's not only the money which is at stake, it's the trust of taxpayers," Jourová said. "It's very logical that the states that want further massive financial injections should be under [the prosecutor]."

Discussions about the EU's spending priorities for the next financing period, led by Budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger, include debate on what conditions should be attached to receiving cohesion funds for the poorer regions of the EU. As POLITICO reported last week, Berlin is looking into ways to freeze funding for countries that don’t comply with EU standards on the rule of law, though Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker rejected that idea as "poison."

The EPPO will have a remit to investigate and prosecute fraud and corruption relating to the EU budget and, significantly, cross-border VAT fraud, which costs countries in the bloc an estimated €50 billion a year.

To address concerns about EU "mission creep," a network of prosecutors located in each participating country will compliment the 20 prosecutors who will be based in the bureau's new Luxembourg headquarters.

Even so, the new agency was too much to stomach for some countries. "For our Polish partners, the [new prosecutor] seemed to be the first step in the direction of the federalization of criminal justice," Jourová said, rejecting this suggestion by pointing out the limitations to its powers.

Indeed, the European Parliament and some national capitals wanted the new prosecutor's office to have broader powers to tackle crimes like trafficking and terrorism. "If there's strong demand to use [the prosecutor] for other types of crime, never say never, but for the moment, I don't see any option of this kind during my mandate," said the Czech commissioner.

This story was updated to clarify the context of the commissioner's comments.