Commission faces new Eurostat quiz

By David Cronin

Date: 30/10/03

THE European Commission is set to come under further pressure from MEPs over unanswered questions on the fraud scandal at the Eurostat data agency.

Spanish deputy Juan José Bayona de Perogordo has prepared a questionnaire for the Commission, seeking clarification about issues surrounding Eurostat.

He has seized on a statement made by the Commission's internal audit service (IAS) that advisors to Pedro Solbes, the commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, received a note from Yves Franchet, then Eurostat director-general, in July 2002.

The note concerned the 'data shops' in which Eurostat publications are sold - the anti-fraud office OLAF subsequently forwarded a dossier to a Paris public prosecutor implicating the network of shops in the “vast looting”.of EU funds.

According to Bayona de Perogordo, that “note was altered by unknown persons so that key information was left out of the final note”.

The Madrid native belongs to the Parliament's biggest political group, the European People's Party (EPP), and has been tasked with drafting the assembly's stance on whether it should sign off the EU's accounts for the 2002 financial year.

He has asked the Commission to “list the persons who could have changed the note”, to provide details of who the document was circulated to and to give the Parliament a copy of both the final memo and its uncensored version.

His questionnaire will be discussed by Parliament's budget control committee (Cocobu) next week (3-4 November).

The Cocobu meeting is also due to hear a presentation by IAS head Jules Muis on his service's report into Eurostat, which the committee received this week.

UK Conservative Chris Heaton-Harris said all the commissioners whose departments are mentioned in the IAS paper should appear before Cocobu.

“If the Commission wants to deal with this properly, it will have to pull out all the stops,”.he remarked.

The IAS report has queried why no calls for tender were issued in the awarding of contracts worth €50 million to a company described as AE by various Commission outlets. The company has been working for the EU executive on statistics relating to aid to the African, Caribbean and Pacific bloc.

As well as Eurostat, the firm signed contracts with the directorate-general for regional policy, which falls under the political responsibility of Commissioner Michel Barnier, and the EuropeAid Cooperation Office. Five commissioners sit on the latter's board - Chris Patten, Poul Nielson, Günter Verheugen, Pascal Lamy and Pedro Solbes. Commission spokespeople declined to make any comment about the IAS report this week.

Some 400 contracts concluded by Eurostat in 1999-2002 were probed by the IAS. Although the Commission has argued that the irregularities in the agency occurred before Romano Prodi's term in office began in 1999, the IAS found the agency has continuously shown favouritism to a coterie of firms. In 1996-2002, just five firms won almost 40% of all contracts awarded by Eurostat.

Heaton-Harris, also an EPP member, has backed calls by Portuguese Socialist MEP Paolo Casaca for Culture Commissioner Viviane Reding to be quizzed by Cocobu. Casaca says she must be held to account for an unauthorized bank account opened by the European Publications Office (OPOCE).

But the call has been resisted by other EPP deputies. They argue that Reding, a Luxembourg conservative, should not be reproached about suspected irregularities in OPOCE as its management board comprises representatives from everyEU institution.

The Spanish MEP Juan José Bayona de Perogordo has prepared a questionnaire for the European Commission, seeking clarification on issues surrounding the financial scandal at the Commission's statistical arm, Eurostat. The questionnaire was due to be considered by the European Parliament's Budget Control Committee (Cocobu) on 3-4 November 2003.