Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-18-Speech-2-076"
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"en.20000118.3.2-076"2
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"Mr President, rapporteur, restoring the confidence of the citizens in the work of the European institutions and in European politics is one of the most important tasks we have before us. The Commission has given its commitment to this task and the draft for the overall package of internal reforms documents this. Parliament is committed to this task, which is something this report bears impressive witness to. On behalf of the Commission I am able to congratulate the rapporteur on having again addressed the genuinely difficult question as to what we can do, in terms of creating legal bases and effecting institutional change, to step up the fight against fraud perpetrated against the European Union.
On ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty, all Member States stated that they wanted to accord combating fraud against the financial interests of the European Union the same priority as combating fraud to their own detriment. Yet as things stand, only the first four Member States have ratified the agreement concluded in 1995. The Commission wholeheartedly agrees with the rapporteur that this is an unacceptable situation
A legislative act, a directive, in which there is a standardised definition for the different types of fraud such as money-laundering or corruptibility, and in which the obligation to launch criminal proceedings is enshrined as a binding objective, may enable us to take a major step forwards, and I will therefore advise the Commission to examine this step with all due haste.
OLAF, the European anti-fraud office is one of the most important instruments the Commission has for fulfilling its obligation to combat fraud. Accordingly, the Commission refused to put up with the fact that both European banks, the ECB and the EIB, contested the right of OLAF to include these two institutions in its investigations, citing their independent status. This is why the Commission resolved on raising a complaint against these two banks at its last meeting, and I hope that Parliament approves this step.
The second recommendation in this report relates to assessing the legitimacy of the investigative measures undertaken by OLAF in the various European institutions. It is the task of the monitoring committee for OLAF, which was set up at the same time as OLAF, to safeguard the independence of OLAF, however it cannot undertake the action mentioned in the report of monitoring internal investigative activities conducted by OLAF. I am fully in agreement with the monitoring committee and the rapporteur on this point. In other words, there is a loophole here which must be filled and I will examine the solution advocated in the report in the interests of moving things on.
There is one thing I would ask though: I believe we must prevent the debate on extending the legal basis for OLAF from leading to the misconception that OLAF does not now have enough authority. No, there must be no undermining of OLAF’s authority, and neither do I think this was the rapporteur’s intention. As such, I would ask you to give OLAF’s work your full support, also in its present form."@en1
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