Gradin slams delay on fraud

Date: 19/09/1996

By Mark Turner

JUSTICE and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin this week launched a bitter attack on member states for dragging their heels over measures to criminalise fraud against the EU's coffers.

More than a year after EU justice ministers agreed on the so-called 'fraud convention', not one member state has ratified the accord in its national parliament.

The Commissioner made it clear that her patience was wearing thin, but admitted there was little she could do to force the pace.

“I have no weapon in my hand. This is the problem with intergovernmental work. It is slow, it is inefficient, it is taking a long time,” she told European Voice this week.

National experts blame the delays on continuing disagreements between member states over the role of the European Court of Justice.

As with all EU cooperation in criminal law, the UK remains firmly opposed to unnecessary ECJ involvement, insisting the Union should “focus firmly on practical cooperation”.

But other member states argue that without jurisdiction by a European body, the convention would lack the coherence necessary to tackle the problem. “You cannot have 15 different interpretations of an offence,” said one official.

Gradin does not even accept that a problem exists.

“There is no problem with the Court, or anything,” she said, pointing out that the fraud convention was signed in July 1995.

Whether such obstacles are real or not, experts predict a compromise could be reached soon on the ECJ issue along the lines of the 'Europol solution' reached at June's Florence summit. That established a voluntary protocol, giving the ECJ jurisdiction over preliminary judgements only in those member states which wanted it.

The other reason for the delay is more practical than political, according to Commission officials who say governments do not want to begin the ratification process until two additional protocols to the convention have been signed by ministers.

The first, agreed but not signed during Italy's EU presidency, would address corruption by government administrations. The second, which would penalise firms as well as individuals who benefit from EU fraud, is still languishing on the negotiating table.

Following recent progress, however, experts expect agreement on the ECJ and both protocols by the end of the year.

This wait-and-see attitude does not impress Gradin. “That is dragging your feet,” she argues. “Why do we need an excuse for starting the process of European legislation?”

But all the Commissioner can do at the moment to speed up the process is to urge member states to act. Under present arrangements, competence in criminal fraud lies firmly in member states' hands under the justice and home affairs pillar of the Maastricht Treaty.

The only way forward, argues Gradin, is to transfer competence in such matters to the first, Commission-led pillar.

Informally, however, it seems that the Commission is taking a pragmatic approach.

“Once the entire convention is complete, the European Commission will step up pressure on governments to ratify it,” said one official.

In the meantime, Gradin's challenge stands. Her message to EU governments is a simple one: “Show the political will and ratify the convention.”

The European Parliament's civil liberties committee last week also called on national governments to ratify the convention.

Optimists believe neither party will have to wait too long. They say the ratification process could well begin by the end of the year, after which there should be enough pressure for a speedy transit - possibly as little as six months - through legislatures.

Despite these high hopes, however, more pragmatic observers fear the process has a long way to go.

After all, commitments to criminal conventions have not proved very reliable in the past - some Council of Europe conventions have still not been ratified by signatories years after the event.

Belgian sources, for example, insist that their parliament will pass the European Convention on Extradition any day now: almost 40 years after signing it.