Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-09-13-Speech-1-058"
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"en.19990913.5.1-058"2
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"Mr President, I shall just comment on one point made in the report by the Committee of Independent Experts, which is chapter 5, concerning fraud in the European Union.
The Committee of Independent Experts has hit the nail on the head in the sense that, at the moment, fraud is a matter of national responsibility. That is to say that, theoretically, somebody could take all the European Community’s money, and if that person is brought before a court, in a legal system which does not recognise the crime of fraud against the Institutions of the European Community because it is not classified as such, that person would not even be able to be tried, because there would be no legal basis to do so.
I think that this is quite a serious matter. We must remember, for example, that only four States have ratified the European Union Agreement on cooperation in the fight against fraud in the European Union and that, at the moment, there is no legal framework for combating fraud.
The Committee of Independent Experts’ report has some practical conclusions to offer on this matter. The most important is the creation of a European Ministry for Public Affairs in various stages. Both Joan Colom and Mrs Theato mentioned this. I think though, that the problem goes far beyond that. Specifically, the Committee of Independent Experts’ report proposes that the Union Treaties be amended in order to give the European Ministry for Public Affairs far-ranging powers. But the question we should ask is, is it not time, if the European Union wants to protect its financial interests effectively, for a Community Criminal Law which would allow us to establish fraud against the Community’s financial interests as a Community-wide crime, and to have a competent criminal legal system?
I have the impression that, when all is said and done, the proposals are positive, that we should endorse them, but that probably, bearing the Intergovernmental Conference in mind, we should take them further.
I would like to end my intervention by thanking Mr Marín for his hard work over all these years in his posts within the Commission, and in his final one as President-in-Office of the Commission, and by wishing Mr Kinnock good luck, a lot of tact and caution in the difficult tasks which await him in the forthcoming months and years."@en1
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