Give OLAF full independence, urges report

Date: 02/10/03

By David Cronin

THE “hybrid status” of EU anti-fraud office OLAF is “untenable in the long-term,” according to a European Parliament report.

At present, OLAF, one of the bodies probing the Eurostat scandal, enjoys autonomy from the European Commission but is under the control of Budget Commissioner Michaele Schreyer for administrative purposes.

Austrian Socialist MEP Herbert Bösch, the report's author, contends that OLAF's work “makes it necessary” for it to have “the greatest possible degree of independence”. Rather than falling within the Commission's activities, he feels it should have a separate heading under the EU budget - as is the case with the European Ombudsman.

The report was presented to the Parliament's budget control committee (Cocobu) on Monday (29 September). During that meeting, several MEPs alleged that the Commission's hierarchy had sought to weaken OLAF during the Eurostat inquiry.

The Commission President Romano Prodi was criticized for seeking to shift the blame from Pedro Solbes, the commissioner who bears political responsibility for Eurostat, and onto OLAF. In a statement delivered to an in camera meeting of Parliament's political group leaders and Cocobu last week, Prodi argued that OLAF's investigation had been “a little too leisurely”. He accused it of failing to warn the Commission of the “true scale” of fraud warnings contained in audit reports at its disposal.

MEP Generoso Andria said: “Mr Prodi is passing the buck.”

UK Conservative Chris Heaton-Harris said he was not surprised that the Commission task force's report into Eurostat was tame in its criticisms of the EU executive, adding: “This was a body created for the Commission, by the Commission, to absolve the Commission.”

Two OLAF inquiries into Eurostat have been ongoing since 2000, the report points out.

A report presented to the European Parliament's Budget Control Committee on 29 September 200, argues that OLAF, the European Union's anti-fraud office, should have 'the greatest possible degree of independence'.