Whistleblower says ‘I’d do it all again’

Date: 02/10/03

By Martin Banks

DORTE Schmidt-Brown, the woman who 'blew the whistle' on Eurostat, has paid a heavy price for speaking out, but insists she has no regrets. “I'd do it all again,” she told European Voice this week.

The Danish economist says she suffered a nervous breakdown after exposing dodgy practices at the EU's Luxembourg-based statistics office. The agency, managed by the European Commission, is the subject to a number of investigations into claims that its former director-general, Yves Franchet, operated slush funds and lined up lucrative contracts for private firms that he ran.

Schmidt-Brown first raised concerns about her employers in February 2000, and her worst fears were confirmed in March this year when OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office, uncovered what it termed a “vast enterprise of looting”.

But blowing the whistle took its toll on Schmidt-Brown, who is married and has an eight-year-old son.

She quit her job on medical grounds and is now living on a €35,000-a-year invalidity pension. Speaking from her home on the Danish island of Fuen, she is candid about the effect the Eurostat affair has had on her.

She said: “I am 37 years old and on invalidity benefit - hardly the best career move. I've sacrificed nearly four years of my life to this and suffered both psychologically and physically as a result.

“People often ask me if it's all been worth it and, from a personal point of view, you have to say, on reflection that, no, it hasn't. But if you ask if I would do it all again, I wouldn't hesitate to say that I would.”

She adds: “I felt it was my duty to expose something I thought was wrong and, if there's been a high personal price to pay for that, then so be it.”

The allegation she raised against Eurostat in 2000 related to a contract awarded to Eurogramme, a Luxembourg firm which compiled industrial production figures for the agency. She alleged that the company had overstated its turnover figures to win the contract and been overpaid for the work it did.

Making such complaints was not encouraged, says Schmidt-Brown, who said she suffered “severe” harassment.

“When you stand out from the horde, you are, of course, going to run into things that are not very nice. I'd always been happy at Eurostat but I was no longer made to feel part of my own team. I was treated like an outcast.

“It got to the point where I was unable to enter my own place of work without my legs physically shaking.

“It would have been nice to get the support of my employers - that I did not was very disappointing - but I am afraid that the only people who stood by me at the time were my family and friends.”

Schmidt-Brown is now seeking compensation through the European Court of Justice and her complaint about the alleged harassment she suffered is being investigated by the European Ombudsman.

The Dane joined Eurostat in 1993 as a project manager and was later promoted to an A6-grade post as head of a section compiling industrial statistics. She was on sick leave for nearly two years, from January 2001 until last December, when she left the Commission.

Hoping to make a “fresh start”, Schmidt-Brown and her family recently moved to a farmhouse on Fuen, the second largest island in Denmark and her place of birth.

She declines to be drawn on whether Pedro Solbes, the economic and monetary affairs commissioner who holds primary political responsibility for Eurostat, should be sacked.

She said: “It would have been nice if everyone had been able to draw a line under it all last week with the publication of the reports into Eurostat. But, clearly, it was just another step along the road and I suspect there are more revelations to come out.

“I just hope that when it's all settled, appropriate action will be taken against all those involved.”

Looking back, she says: “I don't feel any bitterness - that wouldn't achieve anything - just disappointment at the way I was treated. But I certainly feel recent events have vindicated the actions I took.

“Hopefully, there will be changes - not least in the time it takes to deal with such matters - and no one will have to endure what I went through.”

Danish MEP Freddy Blak is backing Schmidt-Brown in her case.

“A lot of people said she was paranoid and sick, but there was something bad going on in Eurostat.”

“It was a really bad management system,” Blak added.

Interview with Dorte Schmidt-Brown, the Danish economist who spoke out over irregular practices at Eurostat, the European Union's statistical agency.