MEPs move to stamp out budget fraud

Date: 06/09/01

By David Cronin

Tough measures must be introduced to ensure that fraud involving EU funds is tackled swiftly, MEPs will demand next week.

German conservative Diemut Theato, who chairs the budgetary control committee, said she will be tabling proposals urging that Union delegation offices must inform Brussels of suspected fraud as soon as cases are brought to their attention.

Her calls come in response to revelations that the former director of Slovakia's foreign aid department, Roland Toth, was only interviewed by police months after allegations that he was involved in embezzling of the EU's 140m-a-year pre-accession aid to Bratislava first surfaced.

On Monday (10 September), the committee will begin two days of talks on how the European Commission's blueprint for stamping out fraud can be bolstered. The Parliament's rapporteur on the issue, Austrian socialist Herbert Bösch, said he would probably endorse Theato's plan.

Both deputies visited Bratislava in June to seek information about the fraud case, which led to Toth's resignation and the temporary freezing of Union aid to the country. "We found that people in Slovakia's EU delegation were not at all informed about what was happening both in Slovakia and Brussels," said Bösch. "I can imagine that that could also be the case in other pre-accession countries. It is high time that the Parliament takes a look at these questions."

His report will also highlight the alleged use of 'submarine' officials, who are hired on conditions that do not comply with EU institutions' staff regulations, at the Commission's Vienna office. "The fact that there were still submarines being used under the new Commission is absolutely unacceptable after the resignation of the old Commission," added Bösch. "The Commission must stop playing hide-and-seek with taxpayers' money."