Call for clarification of Commissioners’ political accountability

The European Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee insisted on 13 January 2004 that "individual Commissioners are politically responsible for wrongdoings by their departments" and are accountable to the Parliament, while noting that so far no Commissioner has taken political responsibility for the abuses at the statistics office Eurostat. Nevertheless, the committee recognised that Commissioners have admitted mistakes and are trying to develop an action plan to avoid "this kind of intolerable situation" from happening again.