Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-12-Speech-2-282"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fight against fraud detrimental to the European Union is a high priority of the Commission's activities and is an important aim for the reform of the Commission's overall financial management. Today we are debating Mrs Theato's report on the Commission's report on its strategy for fighting fraud. The Commission presented its report in June this year and I welcome the fact that we can debate the reports as early as today.
The Commission takes an overall approach in its strategy for protecting the Communities' financial interests and fighting fraud; overall means that it involves all levels of activity and also all the players, all the players in the European Union institutions as also in the Member States as also in the candidate states or third countries that are responsible for dealing with European money.
The strategy is built around four main lines of action: an anti-fraud legislative policy, operational cooperation between the relevant authorities, an interinstitutional approach to combat fraud in office and enhancement of the penal judicial dimension. Since time is short I will present the individual points briefly. The first strategic line of action consisting of comprehensive legislation to combat fraud includes legal provisions to prevent, detect and prosecute cases of fraud. For if a policy to protect the Communities' financial interests is to be effective, it must be based on clear and easily applicable legal rules that contain provisions on efficient financial management.
The second line of action relates to operational cooperation with the Member States and the candidate states and third countries. It is precisely in this area that thanks to the creation of OLAF we have a very powerful instrument. We are expanding its field of application step by step, which means first and foremost making greater use of OLAF for the collection and evaluation of information, as a kind of intelligence service for the fight against fraud.
The next step will be to organise OLAF's working methods in such a way as to turn it into a real platform of services for the Member States and for the authorities involved in the fight against fraud. As Mrs Theato rightly points out in her report, OLAF occupies a crucial position in the Commission's anti-fraud strategy, which is why, and I want to stress that very strongly, the Commission is extremely keen to see this authority built up rapidly. There are, however, a number of difficulties with regard to the legal basis for setting up OLAF. You know that the Commission would have preferred OLAF to be set up as a totally independent authority. But, and here I am addressing Mr Bösch, a different legal basis was created. OLAF is independent in the operational field while on the other hand it has to carry out tasks for which the Commission is directly responsible. That is bound to create difficulties, which must of course be resolved. I can only assure you once again, in regard also to the issue of the recruitment authority: the director of OLAF is entirely independent in the appointment of staff, and that applies not only to the lower level but also to the more senior and top levels. What you are addressing now is the following issue: will OLAF also use an advisory committee in order to bring more transparency into the selection process for senior officials? Actually I am sure that it is also in OLAF's interest to make the selection of senior officials transparent.
I just want to point out the following: we now have to live and work with this legal basis. The Supervisory Committee is constantly putting forward interesting proposals and considering the further development of the legal basis. In this regard the Commission is very open to proposals and reforms.
The third line of action is common action by the European institutions to fight and prevent fraud in office, and here let me point out that the Commission's complaints against the EIB and ECB because of the disputes about OLAF are still pending and that the complaint by 70 members of this House against OLAF's investigative powers is still pending.
Finally, the fourth line of action concerns the penal judicial dimension, and along with it, the penal judicial consequences of established, detected or presumed fraud. Here the overall situation remains as unsatisfactory as ever, especially as regards cooperation with the Member States, not because of any unwillingness but because of the structural inadequacies and difficulties that exist in this field. That is also why the Commission took the step of submitting a draft document on establishing a European Public Prosecutor's Office to the Intergovernmental Conference in Nice. More and more countries took a positive view of this proposal during the preparatory discussions for Nice. That did not give rise to any hope that the Treaty would be amended accordingly, but did justify the hope that a decision would be taken in Nice on how to move forward on this issue. Unfortunately, no such decision was taken in Nice on the Saturday evening, because of the objection of one state, which I find most regrettable. Nonetheless, the Commission will not be discouraged and we will ensure that there is a public debate. The next target date is 2004, the next Intergovernmental Conference."@en1
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