Prosecutors consider action over key Eurostat contracts as firm denies allegations

Date: 11/07/02

By Martin Banks

PUBLIC prosecutors are considering whether to press criminal charges over alleged fraud involving Eurostat, the EU's statistical agency.

Robert Biever, Luxembourg's procureur de l'etat (public prosecutor), was this week handed dossiers relating to two cases involving the agency following an exhaustive investigation by OLAF, the European Union's anti-fraud office.

OLAF cannot release details about its findings for legal reasons, but a spokesman confirmed that they related to contracts between Eurostat and private companies in Luxembourg.

One firm known to be at the centre of its probe is Eurogramme.

The company won a €250,000 contract to compile European industrial production figures for Eurostat after allegedly providing a false financial picture of itself.

The OLAF inquiry was launched more than two years ago after concerns were first raised by the Commission's budget directorate-general.

Dorte Schmidt-Brown, a Danish economist working for Eurostat, claimed last month that Eurogramme failed to fulfil the terms of its contract with the agency and was overpaid for work done. The firm is currently thought to have 12 contracts with Eurostat, worth €1.6 million.

The allegations have been strongly refuted by Eurogramme.

A spokesman for the company, Edward Ojo, has described the claims being made against it as 'malicious and untrue'.

Nevertheless, German MEP Gabrielle Stauner has asked the Commission to provide details of all contracts awarded by Eurostat in the past three years.

Eric Mamer, spokesman for the Commission's administrative reform chief Neil Kinnock, welcomed OLAF's investigation, while stressing that alleged fraud in EU institutions accounts for only a tiny proportion of OLAF's work.

'OLAF closed 663 cases last year and only 13 of these concerned fraud in EU institutions,' Mamer added.

Meanwhile, Eurostat's director-general Yves Franchet has hit back at recent attacks on the agency.

In an email sent to his staff, he wrote: 'The attacks are aimed at Eurostat's management and me in particular.

'I know that many of you feel irritated and hurt and see the attacks as very unjust.

'I know your commitment, your competence and honesty and am determined to defend it.'

Public prosecutors are considering whether to press criminal charges over alleged fraud involving Eurostat, the EU's statistical agency, following an exhaustive investigation by OLAF, the European Union's anti-fraud office.