Cooperation in fighting fraud

Date: 02/11/1995

By Rory Watson

LIBERAL parliamentarians in the European Union plan to issue a ten-point programme to fight fraud against the EU 85-billion-ecu budget next week.

The initiative is being launched just days before the Court of Auditors issues its annual report into EU spending and coincides with efforts by MEPs to strengthen the Union's fraud-fighting arsenal when the Maastricht Treaty is reviewed next year.

Gijs de Vries, president of the Parliament's Liberal group, believes closer cooperation between the European and national parliaments is essential if the EU's financial interests are to be properly protected.

“We have to end our mutual jealousy and work together to represent citizens and one area we can do this is in fighting fraud, a classic example of where national and European competences intersect. It is quite evident we need better national control over national governments, while the European Parliament can exercise political scrutiny over the Commission,” maintains De Vries.

Liberal MEPs aim to win backing for the programme when national parliamentarians come to Brussels on 8 November to debate strategies for tackling fraud. Also present at the meeting will be Anti-Fraud Commissioner Anita Gradin, the head of the Commission's fraud-fighting squad Per Brix Knudsen and British member of the Court of Auditors John Wiggins.

Stressing the importance of ensuring that the European taxpayer's money does not go astray, De Vries says: “The European Union does a lot of things well, but what it does is often overshadowed by ingenious criminal behaviour. I feel the Commission is on the right path, but concrete results are not yet forthcoming. There are a lot of good intentions, but we all know the road to fraud is paved with good intentions.”

Among the ideas being considered next week is the suggestion that national parliaments in the member states should have an annual debate on those sections of the Court of Auditors' regular reports dealing with fraud in their countries.

Liberals are also expected to repeat their call for the first special committee of inquiry to be set up by the European Parliament under its new Maastricht powers to focus on fraud. Cross-party support already exists for the committee, which will be able to interrogate European and national officials, to select an area of EU finances for its first investigation rather than tackle wider issues like nuclear tests.

“It is very important that when the Parliament decides its first topic, it gets its priorities right. The first decision must lead to perceptible success on the part of the parliament and help convince a sceptical public. We should make the subject as specific and focused as possible,” explains De Vries.

MEPs are also examining ways of strengthening the Union's anti-fraud judicial armoury when the Maastricht Treaty is reviewed.

Gradin told the Parliament's institutional affairs committee this week that although the treaty contained 15 different provisions to protect European taxpayers' money, its enforcement powers should be clarified.

She also advocated that the various European Union institutions, including the European Parliament, should be given a more central role in the fight against fraud by making it a Community rather than an intergovernmental matter.

French Christian Democrat MEP Jean-Louis Bourlanges reassured Gradin that the Commission would have MEPs' support for spot checks to detect financial irregularities. He also urged tighter controls on member states which would force them to reimburse EU money fraudulently used on their territory and recommended this might be achieved by the creation of a strong independent body such as a European Court for Budgetary Discipline.