Budget sign-off in doubt as MEPs question ‘gentlemen’s agreement’

Date: 28/03/02

By David Cronin

MEPS are preparing to hold members of three EU institutions to account for how they use taxpayers' money.

In an unprecedented move, the Parliament's budget control committee is recommending that the full assembly should not sign off the Council of Ministers' accounts for the 2000 financial year when its discusses the issue at its next plenary session (8-11 April).

The move follows a refusal by the Spanish presidency to give a breakdown on how most of the Council's money is spent.

The committee is incensed by a recent letter from Madrid's EU ambassador Javier Conde to its chairwoman Diemut Theato. He referred to a 'gentlemen's agreement' under which the Parliament does not have to approve large sections of the Council's budget. But a report adopted by the committee questions if such an accord exists and argues that the Council's spending on foreign policy and justice and home affairs should be subject to closer scrutiny.

Even harsher criticisms are levelled at the EU's Economic and Social Committee (Ecosoc). A report by Welsh Socialist Eluned Morgan has seized on new findings by the Commission's anti-fraud office, OLAF. These implicate 59 Ecosoc members in a false expense claim scandal in 1996-97, which robbed the taxpayer of €1.7 million.

Morgan branded as 'terrifying' a statement by Göke Frerichs, the institution's president, that applying the concept of 'value for money' to an EU institution was 'politically unjustifiable'. Ecosoc Secretary-General Patrick Venturini accused her of quoting Frerichs selectively; he had simply said that the usefulness of EU bodies could not be measured in monetary terms alone.

Venturini insisted Ecosoc has demonstrated its worth recently by fulfilling Commission requests to set up dialogue with non-governmental groups in India and hold debates on the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Some MEPs had urged colleagues to delay signing off the Commission's budget for 2000. It is now virtually certain, though, that it will approve those accounts.

Yet the Parliament is set to formally remind commissioners that they should honour the code of conduct covering their activities. It states they should rule out anything that risks a conflict of interests.

Socialist deputies are using this to pressurise Commission Vice-President Loyola de Palacio to stand aside from discussions about what penalty should be imposed on her native Spain over a flax subsidies scam in the 1990s. She was the country's agriculture minister at the time.

• The European Parliament's budget control committee failed to reach agreement this week on whether 'whistleblower' Paul van Buitenen should be invited to address its members. He has prepared a dossier outlining numerous cases of suspected mismanagement in the Commission but MEPs accepted that asking him to outline it would have political repercussions. The committee will return to this topic at its meeting on 15 April.

The European Parliament's budget control committee is recommending that the full assembly should not sign off the Council of Ministers' accounts for the 2000 financial year. The move follows a refusal by the Spanish EU Presidency to give a breakdown on how most of the Council's money is spent.