Legal chief advises Kinnock to let Andreasen address MEPs

Date: 25/07/02

By David Cronin

INTERNAL Reform Commissioner Neil Kinnock has been advised that he should not try to stop Marta Andreasen, the institution's recently dismissed accounting officer, from addressing her grievances to MEPs.

Documents obtained by European Voice show that Kinnock's chief-of-staff, Gert-Jan Koopman, sought counsel on whether Andreasen could be allowed to appear before the European Parliament's petitions committee, given that disciplinary proceedings against her are under way.

The Spaniard was removed from her post in May after highlighting flaws in the Commission's computerised bookkeeping system. The EU executive has stressed that it was already aware of the problems and that Andreasen was transferred from her job because her superiors had lost confidence in her.

Since then she has sent a petition complaining about her dismissal to the Parliament.

The head of the Commission's legal service, Michel Petite, has advised Kinnock and Koopman that there would be 'no sound legal basis' for preventing her from addressing the committee.

Replying to their request for his opinion on the situation, Petite points out that the Union's treaties 'seem to confer an unlimited right of petition on any EU citizen'.

'There is no specific exception for officials nor is it easy to see any room for an implied exception where there are pending disciplinary (or even criminal) proceedings,' the French lawyer adds.

He also contested suggestions that a Parliamentary hearing and the board handling the disciplinary case against Andreasen would cover the same ground.

Although Petite assumed the disciplinary proceedings would examine criticisms the official raised about a new EU financial regulation, he said 'she appeared to want a more general discussion' with MEPs. 'It therefore follows that any claim that the two things could overlap could easily turn out to be factually wrong,' he contended.

However, Petite stressed that Andreasen would still be subject to her 'statutory obligations' as a Commission employee when addressing MEPs. These include rules stating that an official should never disclose a document to an 'unauthorised person' unless it had already been made public.

Recommending that it would be 'useful to remind Mrs Andreasen of her obligations' in writing, Petite said that this case did not seem to be covered by a decision taken by the Commission in April about 'whistleblowing' by its staff.

That decision recognised that disgruntled officials could inform the president of Parliament of their problems only as a 'last resort'. However, Andreasen had instead contacted the petitions committee, which has asked the committee on budget control to probe the matter.

In a separate move, Andreasen has made a formal complaint to the Commission about her sacking.

Insiders say she has invoked Article 90 of the staff regulations, to request that the sacking and her subsequent appointment as a so-called 'hors classe' advisor to Horst Reichenbach, head of the Commission's personnel department, should be annulled.

She is believed to have contended that the real motivation behind her removal was her differences of opinion with Jean-Paul Mingasson, former head of the budget directorate-general, about the soundness of the institution's financial control system.

It is understood her case is based on an internal letter in which Mingasson, now head of DG Enterprise, describes the procedure requiring that the Parliament scrutinises the Commission's accounts each year as an 'inter-institutional game'.

Last month Kinnock stated that hors classe advisors do not enjoy contracts of fixed duration. He was responding to a Parliamentary question by Greek left-wing MEP Emmanouil Bakapoulos.

Such appointments are widely seen as a way of sidetracking officials who are deemed troublesome or surplus to requirements. The Commission had five officials in this category at the end of May, including Steffen Smidt - controversially removed as head of the fisheries directorate-general in April.

Claims his removal was prompted by complaints from Spain, namely that he was too eager to introduce reforms considered damaging to the country's fishermen, have been vehemently denied.

Internal Reform Commissioner Neil Kinnock has been advised that he should not try to stop Marta Andreasen, the institution's recently dismissed accounting officer, from addressing her grievances to MEPs.