Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-17-Speech-3-345"
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"en.20081217.23.3-345"2
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"Mr President, Mrs Yade, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission must protect the European Union’s financial interests, and it shares the responsibility for this with the Member States, under the treaties. The Commission – I regret that its bench is empty – has important powers with which to combat fraud, corruption and any other illegal activity which undermines the Union’s financial interests.
Let us remember that it was the resignation of the Santer Commission, in March 1999, which led to the creation of the Anti-Fraud Office, or OLAF, whose tenth anniversary we will celebrate next year.
My excellent colleague, Mrs Gräßle, is right to hold the Council to account on the issue of the long-awaited revision of the 1999 regulation for, since then, provision has been made, on the basis of a Commission assessment due to be performed three years after the creation of the Office, to review this regulation that had to be adapted. Your answer, Mrs Yade, is reassuring. It is a consistent answer.
This assessment took place in 2003, and we have a proposal for a regulation. It is now necessary to make a coherent whole of this mechanism, both for internal and external investigations and for OLAF’s general missions. There is the 1999 regulation, number 1073, but we also have the 1996 regulation on spot controls and verifications carried out by the Commission, and that of 1995 on the protection of the Union’s financial interests.
The 2005 assessment contained 17 proposals, including the creation of a European prosecutor, since, although OLAF has investigative powers, it is an administration which is uncontrolled by an independent judicial authority. This authority could be both a safeguard for investigated individuals and a support for OLAF itself. What, then, is the true nature of OLAF? Is it an aid to justice, and, if so, to what European criminal justice? Is it a special administrative department? There is a long way to go. Thank you, Mrs Yade, for the impetus you have provided today."@en1
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