Brussels, 15/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Schreyer presented on Monday evening to the EP Committee on Budgetary Control the European Commission's responses to questions on implementation of the 1998 budget. These responses were requested in the Stauner (EPP, Germany) report, adopted on 13 April, which postponed the vote on discharge, making the grant of discharge conditional upon satisfactory answers.
The meeting of the EP committee was expected to be stormy, as the rapporteur is continuing her isolated attacks against the Commission. In a letter in early May, she warned the Commission of her intention of including in the report the Commission's role in the award of the contract for the EP's Altiero Spinelli building in Brussels: Did the Commission "explicitly approve" the purchase and financing? Why did the Commission's Secretary General allegedly not respond to a letter from the EP Secretary General asking for his opinion? Commissioner Schreyer replied to Gabriel Stauner that the Commission did not have to express its opinion on the award of the contract, due to the administrative autonomy of the institutions. The EP President added that she and the Conference of Presidents were deeply shocked by the initiative taken, "without referring to Parliament's President and Bureau, the relevant authorities". Nicole Fontaine defended the decisions taken by the Bureau for the acquisition of the Spinelli building.
Another sensitive subject: the Fléchard case, about which the Court of Auditors sent in early May a confidential letter to the Presidents of the Commission and the EP, and to the President of the Committee on Budgetary Control, German MEP Diemut Theato (EPP).
The Commission responded to the different requests made by the EP as follows.
1. Reduction in the 2% rate of error. The Commission will "do everything in its power to reduce significantly and as soon as possible the rate of error in relation to payments. It nevertheless takes the view that it cannot set a target figure and insists on the fact that Member States, "in which 90% of the errors occur", must also make an undertaking to address this problem.
2. Clarification, in the Fléchard case, of the proportional nature of the reduction of a financial correction (Ireland, on the advice of the Commission, used the principle of proportionality between the error and the fine to reduce the amount of credits due by Fléchard): the Commission describes the different rules that specify the role and responsibility of the Commission and Member States in different possible cases, without indicating the category in which the Fléchard case could be categorised.
3. Follow-up of the Fléchard case: it is for OLAF to decide to launch an investigation, notably into the disappearance of the minutes of the meeting during which it was decided to reduce the amount due by Fléchard. The Commission "will answer the EP's questions within the limits of its possibilities".
4. Echo case. As stipulated in the personnel statutes, the Commission would re-open disciplinary investigations concerning civil servants if new and proven facts should come to light.
The Commission also affirmed that: a) rules for archiving will be reviewed; b) OLAF has asked Belgian and German authorities to open an investigation into contracts awarded under the MED programme, but has not had an answer yet; c) it has provided the Committee on Budgetary Control with a list of all "visiting scientists" at the Joint Research Centre and has taken the necessary disciplinary measures and initiated an administrative investigation into the JRC; d) it has taken measures against Greece and Portugal, which have not implemented sufficiently the integrated system of administration and control of agricultural spending; e) it has just provided a list of all the disciplinary procedures implemented in 1998, which nevertheless does not give the names of the persons concerned; but for ECHO, they concern a dismissal (Mr Onidi), a non-suit (Mr Gomez-Reino) and a disciplinary investigation (in progress).