Prodi moves to avert showdown with MEPs

Date: 11/05/2000

By Simon Taylor and John Shelley

EUROPEAN Commission President Romano Prodi is set to give MEPs access to a wide range of confidential documents as part of a deal to convince the European Parliament to approve the 1998 budget.

He will also tell the assembly that the EU executive is prepared to reopen investigations into a spate of fraud cases and tighten up procedures for tackling financial mismanagement.

The Parliament has been refusing to approve the 1998 accounts, threatening a repeat of the chain of events which led to the downfall of the Santer Commission. But MEPs on the Parliament's budgetary control committee told European Voice this week that Prodi's pledges would probably be enough to convince the assembly to sign off the budget before the summer. "The most likely outcome is that the committee will accept the Commission's response," said Dutch Socialist MEP Michiel van Hulten.

If Prodi's offer on documents is accepted by the Parliament, it will be seen as a vote of confidence from the assembly in the president's ability to tackle the legacy of fraud and mismanagement from the Santer administration.

The Parliament delayed approving the 1998 budget in March in a bid to force the Commission to take stronger action to clear up some of the highest-profile cases of mismanagement, including alleged fraud in the Union's humanitarian aid and Mediterranean development programmes. German centre-right MEP Gabriele Stauner drew up a list of 17 points which the Commission had to address by next Monday (15 May) in order to get the budget approved. She accused the EU executive of failing to live up to its claims that it would have a policy of "zero tolerance" towards fraud and said it was trying to "draw a veil over and forget past events".

Prodi will tell leaders of Parliament's political groups next week that he is prepared to share many sensitive papers with the budget control committee, but not the minutes of internal inquiries and disciplinary proceedings against officials. Some parliamentarians have warned they might demand wider access to documents as part of a new agreement governing relations between the two institutions.

The Commission president will also present a paper, drawn up by budget chief Michaele Schreyer, setting out what steps the EU executive plans to take to tackle outstanding problems. In the document, the Commission promises to consider reopening a number of investigations including a case involving French dairy firm Fléchard, which had a fine for illegally claiming export refunds reduced; another relating to the Union's ECHO humanitarian aid programme; and allegations surrounding the MEDA scheme for the Mediterranean.

But the Commission is refusing to bow to some of the MEPs' demands, including a request to investigate why minutes of a key meeting relating to the Fléchard case disappeared.

European Commission President Romano Prodi is set to give MEPs access to a wide range of confidential documents as part of a deal to convince the European Parliament to approve the 1998 budget.