OLAF set to probe MEPs’ accounts after secret report

A secret report by the European Parliament's own internal auditor has found major problems affecting the Û140 million that MEPs pay to assistants each year. OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office, has asked to see the report to establish whether MEPs have committed fraud using public funds.

The findings are contained in a report by Robert Galvin, the Parliament's internal auditor, into controls on what MEPs spend on assistants' wages and social security. The report covers spending and controls from late 2004 to 2006, but the Parliament's internal administration has decided that the report should remain confidential. Members of the European Parliament's budgetary control committee can see the document in a sealed room, but are not allowed to make notes and are required to sign a statement pledging to keep the report's contents secret.

Dutch Liberal MEP Jan Mulder, a member of the Parliament's budgetary control committee, called the findings of the report "pretty devastating" and said that if members were found guilty of fraud "they should be prosecuted". Mulder said that MEPs would not be credible in their own demands for a policy of zero tolerance of fraud in the other EU institutions.

UK Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies saw the report on Tuesday (19 February) and immediately wrote to Franz-Josef BrŸner, the director-general of OLAF, asking him to request the Parliament to provide him with the report. A spokesman for OLAF confirmed that BrŸner intended to write to Harald R¿mer, the secretary-general of the Parliament, to ask for a copy.

Davies said: "There is a great reluctance among some MEPs to ensure that the financial procedures of the European Parliament in relation to its members are put on the same sound basis that we would expect of other public institutions. Maybe when some MEPs are named, exposed for defrauding the Parliament and the public and are sent to prison, a more acceptable approach will be adopted."

The internal auditor's report follows long-standing criticism by the European Court of Auditors of the management of MEPs' expenses. In its report on the financial year 2006, published last November, the court said: "The major part of the amounts paid for MEPs' assistance allowance have not been subsequently justified by appropriate supporting documents." The internal auditor's report will be discussed by members of the budgetary control committee on Tuesday (26 February) but will remain confidential.

Davies attacked the decision to keep the report secret. "This decision makes me so angry. A Parliament committed to openness and transparency has no right to try and keep secret details about how public money is used and misused," he said.

The report's findings come as MEPs are trying to increase pressure on the European Commission and national governments to take action to eliminate problems with the spending of EU funds, especially from the structural funds budget.

MEPs said that the problems surrounding assistants' pay would best be resolved by ending the current arrangements with assistants employed under 27 different sets of employment and social security law. Austrian Socialist MEP Herbert Bšsch, chairman of the budgetary control committee, said: "We have problems all the time with secretarial allowances. In the end, assistants should be employed by the house. MEPs should be here to make policy, not to be employers."

A secret report by the European Parliament's own internal auditor has found major problems affecting the Û140 million that MEPs pay to assistants each year. OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office, has asked to see the report to establish whether MEPs have committed fraud using public funds.