Blowing the whistle

Book abstract:

On 9 December 1998, Paul van Buitenen, then an assistant-auditor in the European Commission's Financial Control Directorate blew the whistle on the Commission's poor management of the fight against internal irregularities and fraud. He forwarded an incriminating 34 page letter, which included almost 600 pages of reference material, to a Member of the European Parliament. This led to the acceleration of a series of events that finally led to the resignation of the entire Commission some three months later. As a result of his actions, he was threatened, suspended from his job and disowned by his friends. This book charts the course of a scandal that caused a storm of media attention.

The first chapter contains a short critical outline of the European structures men (in 'Educationed later in the book. The author describes how he worked within these structures and how he saw the European Union's good intentions defeated in various ways. Each chapter begins with a brief explanation of the organisation and aims of the European programme and an introduction to the main players. The final chapters describe the repercussions for the author and his family, the media hype, the suspension, the disciplinary proceedings taken against the author which, at the time of writing, were still ongoing, and his feelings about his uncertain future.
First published in the Netherlands and Germany in the autumn of 1999, this English edition includes an extra chapter which brings the situation up to date.