Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-03-Speech-3-131"
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"en.20031203.10.3-131"2
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Mr President, Mr Bösch, ladies and gentlemen, OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, was, as you mentioned, established in 1999. This office became the focus for most of the Commission’s work to fight against fraud and OLAF was given the task and the right to carry out investigations in any of the European institutions if fraud was suspected. OLAF was entrusted with extensive responsibilities and, as the latest OLAF activity report shows, it has already notched up clear successes in many areas. OLAF carries out its administrative investigations, whether internal or external, completely independently, even though the office is established within the Commission.
The Commission cannot, however, accept the rapporteur’s proposal to make the secretariat of the Supervisory Committee part of the European Parliament’s secretariat. The proposal raises fundamental questions of interinstitutional balance and also legal issues. The question of where the secretariat should be located needs to be given thorough consideration.
Neither can the Commission support the other proposals on OLAF’s budgetary status or on the control mechanism within the Commission, because they would call into question key aspects of the reform of our financial management. I might also remind you that, following the intensive work of Parliament and the Council, the new Financial Regulation only entered into force on 1 January of this year. We first need to gain experience with this new legislation. In any case, it is too early to make significant changes.
It is now a question of acting swiftly – the Commission fully agrees with you here – and of tabling a legislative proposal that has a real chance of being dealt with in this Parliament. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to do so before the end of this year, as the Committee on Budgetary Control suggests in its report, and I would ask for your understanding in the light of the complex and sensitive nature of the subject. However, the Commission is confident that it will be able to table a legislative proposal very quickly at the beginning of next year. We should work on this together. We will take account of your report and the opinions of the Supervisory Committee in our work and considerations. The Commission is prepared to cooperate extensively with Parliament and, in the interests of effective fraud prevention in the European Union, our joint overriding objective should be to create a solid and workable basis for OLAF’s future work.
This dual status has raised both problems and questions, as can be seen from the report that we are debating today. At issue in today’s debate is the Bösch report on the Commission’s so-called Article 15 report. This sounds very technical, but it is a tremendously important debate, because it is about the future of OLAF, which, let us not forget, is still a very young office.
The Commission would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, for his hard work. The evaluation of OLAF’s activities over the last three years, which is the subject of the report, has been largely eclipsed by the Eurostat affair. Nevertheless, the findings and analyses in the report are essentially still valid, even though the views of the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, differ from our own in many respects. It is true, however, that the Eurostat affair did highlight existing shortcomings, in particular the question of communication between OLAF and the Commission, and OLAF’s legal framework, which was adopted in record time in 1999, needs to be adjusted accordingly. This does not mean, however – and here the Commission agrees with the rapporteur – that we need to go back to square one. At the present time, this would not appear to be either proper or realistic. In any case, greater changes are in the offing for OLAF, at the latest once we achieve our aim of setting up a European financial prosecution service. The Commission is continuing to lobby very vigorously for the European financial prosecution service to be enshrined in the new constitution, and we then propose to table a White Paper.
I now turn to your report. In it, the Committee on Budgetary Control criticises various aspects of OLAF’s work, in particular its investigative activities and its priorities. Although I understand the rapporteur’s displeasure, I do not think that the criticism is entirely fair on all counts. OLAF has a difficult transitional period behind it. It would be wrong to view and assess OLAF through the Eurostat lens alone and not to include other essential work in the evaluation, whether it be in customs or cooperating with the enlargement countries to fight fraud – a very important field – or in the legislative area.
Despite the criticism from the Committee on Budgetary Control, I do not think that Parliament’s and the Commission’s positions are actually all that far apart. What we all want is a proportionate reform of OLAF, that can be dealt with if possible in this parliamentary session. This is a starting point for us to work together.
On 18 November, President Prodi outlined the essential features of the proposed improvements in the Committee on Budgetary Control and I take it from your speech, Mr Bösch, that you too would agree with their general thrust. The Commission and the Committee on Budgetary Control agree that OLAF should concentrate more on its core activities. I should, however, also like to scotch the rumours that could be heard after the President of the Commission had made his speech, namely that if Commission officials were suspected of fraud the Commission wanted to take control of the internal investigations away from OLAF. Let me be quite clear: this is not true. Instead, we need to consider whether tasks that are not closely related to OLAF’s specific area of expertise should be moved back to the sectoral directorates-general. This might apply, in my opinion, to clearance of accounts in agricultural policy for example. In addition, however, the boundaries between OLAF and other entities with investigative powers, in particular IDOC, need to be more clearly defined. Moreover, it should also be stated clearly in the regulation itself that it is the Director of OLAF who decides whether or not to open an investigation, that it is the discretionary principle that applies. This too will contribute to ensuring that the office concentrates on its true priorities.
The information flow between OLAF and the institutions needs to be improved considerably. The Eurostat affair exposed the existing weaknesses in the channels of communication. Even when investigations are ongoing, the Commission must be able to take precautionary measures to protect the Community’s financial interests, obviously without jeopardising OLAF’s investigations. The draft memorandum of understanding between the Commission and OLAF is, in our view, an important and opportune step forward. However, in the interests of legal security and clarity the OLAF Regulation should also be clarified accordingly and we will obviously also discuss where such clarifications should be introduced and what form they should take.
An important and completely undisputed point is also strengthening the rights of defence of those who are involved in investigations. The OLAF Manual already contains a whole series of detailed internal rules about this. The main principles underlying the rights of the people concerned, such as their right to inspect files and to be given a hearing, should however be spelt out in the regulation itself.
In his speech of 18 November, President Prodi mentioned enhancing the role of the Supervisory Committee or creating an interinstitutional forum as possible ways of improving OLAF’s governance. The Commission has not yet concluded its reflections on this. However, I can say that on the whole strengthening the Supervisory Committee, as proposed by the Committee on Budgetary Control, is something with which we can agree, particularly when it comes to examining complaints. The Supervisory Committee itself has of course made an interesting proposal on this in its opinion."@en1
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