Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-15-Speech-4-016"
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"en.20060615.4.4-016"2
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".
Mr Bösch, first of all, thank you. What now though? In 2004, nearly 10 000 irregularities were reported involving European funds, but those are, of course, only the cases of fraud and incompetence that we know about. We can only guess at the exact level of fiddling that goes on behind our backs involving European money. I myself fear that this is only the tip of the iceberg against which the ship of the European Union is bound to shatter into pieces. The European citizen is becoming ever more critical of the EU, and money wasting is one of the main reasons for this justified criticism. Two per cent of the Structural Funds are spent on fraud or some other form of mismanagement. Given the enormous sums involved, I find this a very worrying percentage, as it translates into hundreds of millions of euros wasted, at least 20% of which, according to the Commission, is accounted for by direct fraud – self-enrichment at European, national and regional level. It is necessary, in my view, to carry out a Europe-wide assessment of the effectiveness and fraud sensitivity of, in particular, the European Social Fund.
The European anti-fraud office OLAF should commit to fighting fraud in Europe as its main task. Unfortunately, in many cases, this guard dog has often emerged as nothing but a lap dog. One characteristic of this situation is the fact that Parliament is still in the dark about the extent and implications of the Eurostat fraud that came to light back in 2004. This is completely at odds with the efficiency and transparency which the Commission claims to pursue in this communication.
However, it would be unfair, where failing fraud control is concerned, to point the finger at Brussels alone, because the Member States are certainly just as guilty. They turn a blind eye to fraud or do not come down hard enough at any rate. It is unacceptable that the lion’s share of fraud cases should occur in old, relatively rich Member States, including Germany and Spain, and that, moreover, those countries should submit incorrect and incomplete reports on fraud cases on their territories. A clear tit-for-tat policy should apply here: if Member States fail to address fraud and the waste of European funds adequately, this should have consequences in terms of the level of funds they receive. That also applies to my own country, the Netherlands, by the way, when it refuses to name specific perpetrators in fraud cases. Even more important is the prevention of fraud. This can be done by simply cutting off the most fraud-sensitive money streams, for example export subsidies in agriculture, for it is a well-known fact that many of the fraud cases take place in that area. Apart from all other moral objections I have to export subsidies, this seems to be an excellent reason to put an end to this ridiculous and harmful form of support."@en1
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