Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-18-Speech-2-059"
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"en.20000118.3.2-059"2
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"Mr President, year after year we learn, mainly from the European Court of Auditors’ test reports, that money is lost to the budget of the European Union on account of misdemeanours ranging from wastage, mismanagement, and irregularities to suspected blatant fraud. For some time now, these abuses have meant that Parliament has been called upon to initiate measures that should serve to protect the European taxpayer’s money, which, when all is said and done, is what sustains the Union’s budget.
I call upon you, ladies and gentlemen, to vote in favour of this report, which the Committee on Budgetary Control adopted with a large majority. We can set another example here, to the effect that Parliament is taking action to prevent mismanagement and in particular, fraud, and to mete out punishment where necessary.
Particular attention in this respect should be given to combating fraud, to detecting it, punishing those guilty of it and preventing it from happening. Creating UCLAF by means of the Task Force and setting up the anti-fraud office OLAF were important steps, as was the regulation on protecting the financial interests of the Community and on local monitoring.
The Union can only impose sanctions in the field pertaining to administrative law when cases are exposed. So far, efforts on the part of the Commission to ask for improperly obtained money to be returned only had limited success. It is for the Member States to undertake criminal measures. Since there is often overlap between the two legal angles and cross-border violations against the Union budget are on the increase – they are also committed by those involved in organised crime – it is unclear as to where the responsibility lies amongst the Member States. Then there are differences between the national legal requirements of the individual Member States, together with protracted or even unfulfilled requests for mutual assistance in law enforcement. What is more, the agreement on the protection of financial interests and the two subsequent protocols signed by the European Council in 1995 did nothing to change this. For it to enter into force, it must be ratified by all 15 Member States. After five years only four have done so.
This state of deadlock, which threatens to undermine the credibility of the Union, has inspired Parliament to initiate the setting-up of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office. There is no intention whatsoever to create a transnational criminal law and judicial authority, rather the aim is to equip the Union with specific instruments for the protection of its financial interests, that is whilst upholding the principle of subsidiarity.
We are giving new life to this idea with this report and call upon the Commission to present legislative proposals that will enable this goal to be realised. The concerns of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, as articulated in its position, together with those of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, will also be taken full account of in this process.
We would like to make two recommendations arising from the establishment of OLAF and which should safeguard its operational and legal efficiency, transparency, and the protection of the rights of individuals. In addition, we need – and this is my first recommendation – a legislative act that includes those offences which are to the detriment of the Union’s financial interests, and in which main principles are firmly established. I support the proposed deadline for the Commission being 30 September in a proposed amendment.
The second recommendation relates to criminal proceedings. The Commission ought – and I have also amended this deadline to 31 May 2000 – to propose a legislative act on the establishment of an independent body which has institutional links with the Commission, for coordinating and supervising the legal investigative body OLAF. The existing monitoring committee can only monitor the independence of the Director of the agency. The proposal for a legislative act of this kind should contain an independent statute for this body and define its tasks, which are confined to inquiries and criminal prosecution undertaken by OLAF into activities which are to the detriment of the Union’s financial interests, and to OLAF’s relationship with the national authorities.
There is no question of this influencing the administration of justice in the Member States. The Court of Justice is to monitor the legality of the legislative acts. In addition, we call upon the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference to take up debate on the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office for the protection of the financial interests of the Union, where possible on the basis of the now widely recognised study compiled by well-known experts, the so-called
and of the feasibility studies that have subsequently appeared.
Further support for this proposal is also to be found in the second report of the so-called Five Wise Men. The Commission, Mr Barnier, Mr Vitorino and several Member States are equally receptive to the idea."@en1
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