MEPs slam inaction over fraud

Date: 09/10/1997

By Rory Watson

THE European Commission and national governments are being accused of hamstringing efforts to claw back millions of ecu of taxpayers' money missing from the EU's coffers.

Increasingly alarmed at the lengthening list of unresolved allegations of fraud against the Union budget, MEPs want to question Commission President Jacques Santer about the failure to get to the bottom of various scandals.

Support is also growing within the European Parliament for the creation of a special committee of inquiry - with the power to summon witnesses - to examine the whole way the Commission handles its own internal procedures and contacts with national authorities when dealing with cases of alleged fraud.

“I have got a great deal of information, but not from the Commission. A lot of questions have arisen in the course of my inquiries which cannot be handled by normal committee procedures. We need a proper investigation to get to the bottom of the matter,” insisted German Socialist MEP Rosemarie Wemheuer, who will produce a report on alleged tourism fraud later this month.

To their obvious discomfort, some Commissioners and officials have already been subjected to tough cross-examination by MEPs in two previous inquiries - on mad cow disease and transit fraud - and few are likely to relish a third.

The request for Santer and the Commission's new Secretary-General Carlo Trojan to appear before MEPs has been lodged by the European Parliament's budget control committee, which is also keen to strengthen the hand of the Commission's anti-fraud unit (UCLAF) by giving it more operational independence.

The committee has written to Santer openly criticising the lack of cooperation and questioning the readiness of Commission officials to provide rapid, complete and accurate information to MEPs.

“A committee like ours must work on a basis of absolute mutual trust and we are now seeing the beginnings of a breakdown in confidence. The Commission must realise that serious disquiet is developing among members of the budget control committee,” said UK Socialist MEP John Tomlinson.

The summons has been prompted not just by concern over the disappearance of millions of ecu ostensibly for tourism projects, but also by growing disquiet at the Commission's failure to respond to detailed criticism of the five-year contract signed in 1992 with a local company to provide security services for almost 60 premises in Brussels.

Allegations have been made that the firm concerned had access to offers submitted by its rivals before the tender's closing date and that a number of 'ghost' individuals were on its payroll.

As far back as 1993, certain officials expressed serious doubts about the contract, but no action was taken. UCLAF is now conducting an investigation into the way the contract involving several hundred security guards was awarded.

In addition, Court of Auditors member Antoni Castells and Tourism Commissioner Christos Papoutsis have complained to MEPs that national judicial authorities have proved reluctant to cooperate in the tourism investigation, which has focused largely on France, Belgium and Greece.

Apart from the two high-profile cases, MEPs are also critical of the Commission's failure to identify the eventual destination of many of the decentralised funds earmarked for Mediterranean development projects and to pinpoint beyond doubt the factors which led to the death several years ago of a Commission official responsible for subsidies to tobacco-growers.