Brussels, 31/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - Having given the matter careful consideration, European Parliament (EP) President Jerzy Buzek formed the view that the European anti-fraud office, OLAF, had the right to open an administrative investigation in the case of the four MEPs who agreed to put down amendments to draft legislation in exchange for payment. As it is not a criminal investigation, Buzek continues to deny OLAF the right to carry out searches of the offices of the MEPs at the centre of the scandal revealed by The Sunday Times. The parliamentarians' immunity has also to be respected.
“After a thorough analysis of all the legal aspects of the OLAF request by the EP Legal Service and exchanges-of-views between the two institutions on the highest administrative level, the President informed OLAF that in the specific case of The Sunday Times allegations against MEPs, it has the right to conduct an administrative investigation”, Buzek says in a press release issued on Thursday 31 March.
The EP president says that Parliament rules of procedure allow, as OLAF had said, anti-fraud office investigations to go beyond the protection of financial interests to include all activities relating to the need to safeguard Community interest against irregular conduct. Buzek says, however, that if OLAF wishes to open an investigation, then it clearly has to conduct it as an administrative, and not a criminal, investigation and act in full respect of the immunity of the MEPs.
Buzek also provided OLAF with the digital data which EP Vice-President Diana Wallis received from The Sunday Times. He says that the EP is ready to cooperate fully with relevant national authorities, including by allowing full access to the offices and computers of the MEPs concerned once immunity is waived. National authorities may also ask OLAF or the EU institutions to support their own investigations, Buzek noted.
The president is to bring forward proposals to strengthen the EP's internal rules and tackle corruption. He has backed a compulsory, rather than the current voluntary, register of lobbyists working with MEPs. He also wants MEPs who exercise an activity outside their parliamentary role to declare this activity in writing and regularly (once per year) update their statements of interest. He suggests that rapporteurs on legislative proposals should “clearly” state all the outside organisations and persons they consulted or whose advice they sought during the drafting of their reports.
“I have always believed in the rule of law and transparency in public life. Public officials who are corrupt attack the very fabric of our democracy. There should be zero tolerance for any form of corruption”, Buzek states in a press release.
Several journalists from the British Sunday newspaper The Sunday Times posed as lobbyists and contacted about 60 MEPs, asking them to put down amendments to draft legislation in return for payment ranging from €12,000 to €100,000. On 20 March, three MEPs - Ernst Strasser, Zoran Thaler and former Romanian prime minister Adrian Severin, were alleged to have agreed. Spanish Conservative MEP Pablo Zalba Bidegain also stands accused, though “he would not accept payment”. On Tuesday, a fourth MEP, Austrian Conservative Hella Ranner, announced her resignation after press revelations that she intended to pay off part of her sizeable personal debt with expenses she receives from the Parliament for carrying out her duties as an MEP. (L.C./transl.rt)