Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-03-Speech-2-137"
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"en.20010403.7.2-137"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there was one sentence in Mr Blak's report which I particularly liked. On page 34, in his Explanatory Statement, he says that the discharge procedure will ideally result in a win-win scenario. In other words, everyone will win: the Commission as the auditee and Parliament as the auditor, and therefore, of course, the taxpayers as well, some of whom are sitting up in the public gallery. But this means that a change of approach is sometimes required too. Unfortunately, there are quite a number of areas in which the Commission has failed to do this – but it has done so, at least, in the field in which I am slightly more involved, namely the fight against fraud.
Less than three weeks have passed since we adopted a resolution here in Strasbourg demanding access to a whole series of reports by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). Until then, we had been systematically denied access to these reports. Mr Brüner, the Director of the European Anti-Fraud Office, has now made all of them available to us. He has thus asserted his position against those in the Commission whose motto when providing information to this House is ‘as little and as late as possible’. This has also been the stance of the Commission's apparently omnipotent Legal Service until now, and we can only hope that the forthcoming change-over at the head of this service will prompt a change of attitude in this respect.
So what information can we glean from these OLAF reports? Even for someone who has worked on this material for a long time, it is staggering to witness the scale and sophistication with which cross-border Europe-wide fraud is orchestrated at the expense of the EU budget. Let's take the example of adulterated butter. This mixture of beef suet and chemical substances was produced under the control of the Mafia in Italy, but was marketed primarily by companies in France, and to some extent, and rather circuitously, through a firm in London, in order to conceal this major fraud even further and erase any leads.
This was the prerequisite, as it were, for the fraud – which was unprecedented in its scope and scale – to operate successfully for so many years. Or let us take the case of flax. At first, this focussed solely on Spain. Then we found out that other Member States were affected as well and that ultimately, the fraud in Spain was only possible because a company in Belgium was issuing purchase certificates for non-existent deliveries. I am pleased to say that despite the stormy political debates in Spain, the cooperation between the Spanish authorities and OLAF is apparently running smoothly and there is a great deal of determination to clear up the matter and bring those responsible to justice.
Even now, OLAF is often at its weakest – and it is important to say this loud and clear – when investigating internal irregularities. This is most apparent in the case of the alleged disappearance of files in the Fléchard affair. This case was approached extremely tentatively. I can understand that. After all, a thorough investigation might reveal that senior and very senior officials have quite simply been telling lies. This is one explanation, but it is no justification. And when OLAF carries out its investigations quickly and efficiently, as in the case of the Stockholm representation, the Commission is remarkably slow to impose the necessary disciplinary measures. This is why the call for a rapid entry into the first phase of a European public prosecution service is so important. We need the "internal" public prosecutor so that the investigations within the institutions can be carried out as thoroughly as possible and the appropriate measures can be taken. It is the Commission's credibility, not least, which is at stake here. For this reason, I would ask you, Ms Schreyer, to present an appropriate report to this House as soon as possible."@en1
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