Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-20-Speech-4-051"
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"en.20081120.4.4-051"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, good things come to those who wait. As rapporteur I am presenting 92 amendments to you today for the revision of the OLAF regulation, with the request that you approve them. This is the first reform of the Anti-Fraud Office since it was established and affects what lies at the very heart of the office, in other words the regulation that controls the essential activities of OLAF.
We would like the Council to allow us to take those steps which we can take together now. Instead of taking the third step before the first step, we should begin at the beginning. As rapporteur, I am prepared to come to an agreement with the Czech presidency over an early second reading. Where there is a will, there is also a way and I am sure that we can find a joint solution.
The European Parliament has given itself two years to revise this regulation, because OLAF issues always represent dangerous territory for us. I am proud of the fact that we in the European Parliament and in the Committee on Budgetary Control were genuinely able to agree and that we remain in agreement. We have not fallen out about the details or generally got into a muddle, as the Council often does. We agree on the objective of the reform which is to create a more efficient office that can carry out its important tasks more effectively.
We stand by the office. We want it to remain in place and we also want it to be able to carry out its tasks. I would like to thank all the employees of OLAF, including the Director General, for their work and to assure them that we need their work. I would also like to thank all my fellow Members, the shadow rapporteurs, the consultants and the committee secretariat and, of course, my own employees who have shown such commitment to this issue. I would like to thank all of you for your wide-ranging support for this work, because this support will represent a success for this Parliament and it is also necessary for its success.
We have worked together to produce a logical development of the already obsolete draft text produced by the Commission and to enhance it with some genuinely innovative elements, such as the Review Adviser for complaints. This will allow us to prevent OLAF from being brought to a standstill and disabled by internal disputes. We have made it our priority to improve the way in which the Member States fight against fraud.
Members of the Council, who are noticeable by your absence once again today, we want to force you to take notice and we will force you to take notice. We want the fight against fraud to be a subject that we share. We do not want to hold a monologue. We want to have a dialogue. Once a year we want to have a joint meeting to discuss the major issues relating to the fight against fraud and the problems in the Member States.
We want to improve the legal protection for those involved in proceedings and to guarantee this protection throughout the entire OLAF investigation. For this reason, we have handed over the entire responsibility to OLAF, its judges and its prosecutors. We want to ensure that the results of OLAF investigations will stand up in court. We want to ensure that national law is taken into account right from the beginning of investigations and that the evidence is obtained under the terms of national law.
We believe it is highly regrettable that some Member States, such as Luxembourg, have never brought an OLAF investigation to court. Any citizens of Luxembourg who are making dishonest use of EU funds have a good chance of getting away scot-free. This has a disastrous impact on respect for the law and this is why we are placing such a great emphasis on equal treatment for everyone affected by an OLAF investigation. EU officials must not be treated differently from other citizens and ordinary citizens must not be treated differently from EU officials.
The Commission would be well advised not even to appear to be attempting to do this. Commissioner, I am on the warpath about this subject. I know that you will reject this point later as unacceptable and that you will insist on this. I think that is a pity! The Parliament will definitely not expose you to the temptation of sweeping the findings of investigations involving EU employees under the Commission's carpet.
We must now convince the Council. The Council is not prepared to negotiate with us over this regulation, but instead aims to consolidate the three legal foundations of OLAF. This means that we are wasting a lot of time over an uncertain outcome and we are missing the opportunity to do what is feasible now, to improve the working conditions of the office and to protect the office from criticism concerning those involved in the proceedings."@en1
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