Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU, EURATOM) No 883/2013, as regards the secretariat of the Supervisory Committee of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)

The Supervisory Committee of the European Anti-Fraud Office was established by Regulation 1073/99 of 25 May 1999 concerning investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). In its work, the Supervisory Committee is supported by a secretariat. Currently, this secretariat is provided by the OLAF, in accordance with Article 15(8) of the OLAF Regulation 883/2013 of 11 September 2013 which states that the secretariat of the Supervisory Committee "shall be provided by the Office, in close consultation with the Supervisory Committee". Article 18 of the Regulation places the budgetary appropriations for the Supervisory Committee and its secretariat within the budget line of the Office and provides that the establishment plan of the Office includes that of the Supervisory Committee and of its secretariat.

However, in the recent past some concerns have been voiced about possible conflicts of interest and calls have been made for a strengthened legal independence as regards the management of the Committee's budget and secretariat. Thus, in its Annual Activity Reports of 2013 and 2014, the Supervisory Committee underlined the importance of its independent and effective functioning which requires an independent and adequately staffed secretariat. It stressed that the exercise of the Appointing Authority powers by OLAF's Director-General, including decisions on promotions and transfers, could potentially lead to conflicts of interest. It called for its budget and that of its secretariat to be specified in a separate line of the OLAF budget.

Under the new proposed Regulation, the secretariat of the Supervisory Committee will be provided by the Commission, and no longer by OLAF. The budgetary appropriations for the secretariat of the Supervisory Committee will be moved from the budget line and the establishment plan of OLAF to that of the Commission. Finally, the proposal amends the wording of paragraphs 4 and 5 of Article 10 so that the competence of OLAF's Data Protection Officer (DPO) will continue to cover the processing of data by the secretariat. Also, the secretariat's staff will continue to be subject to the same confidentiality rules as before.

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)113: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:113:FIN

---