Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-13-Speech-2-203"

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"en.20010313.14.2-203"2
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"Mr President, butter, flax, cigarettes and employment agencies are becoming synonymous with fraud in the European Union. Millions in European money have been paid out erroneously or, as in the case of cigarette smuggling, have not been collected in revenue. This is not a matter of fraud within the EU institutions but at Member State level. Rapporteur Bösch is right in pointing out that the solving of these serious fraud cases forms OLAF’s test case for efficiency. I must add that these fraud cases cannot be solved completely without the cooperation of the relevant Member States. In order to enforce this cooperation, the Commission must put sanctions in place. I therefore find it completely justified that the Netherlands is not receiving any money from the European Social Fund for the time being, until such time as it can account for the unauthorised spending of those monies down to the last euro. In fact, what sanctions are prompting Spain to clear up the flax fraud? Businesses involved in fraud should be blacklisted so that they do not qualify for European subsidy again. They seem logical measures to take, but not to the Commission. That is how the company Fléchard is starting to form part of a European soap: to be continued! OLAF’s efficiency is being threatened by a lack of staff. If the fight against fraud is one of President Prodi’s key goals, he, along with the Commission, has a duty to solve the delay in the recruitment of qualified staff promptly. In this connection, the Commission should avoid any conflict of interest. Commissioners who might be involved in the flax and butter fraud, should not have a say in the appointments of officials who are about to investigate their roles. As elected representatives of the people, this Parliament has a supervisory task. It is unfortunate that the Commission is forever putting spanners in the works. To the Commission, transparency is an opaque word. Clarity is what this Parliament wants and it should therefore be authorised to examine the OLAF reports."@en1

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