Brussels, 11/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The recruitment of OLAF personnel (European Anti-Fraud Office) is difficult, and is the subject of a polemic rekindled last week by the Office's surveillance committee. Discussions bear on the composition of a "consultative appointments committee". Different viewpoints arise due to the different views on the degree of independenc OLAF should have. The question must be settled in order to bring the procedures for assigning OLAF management posts out of deadlock. The OLAF surveillance committee published on 5 December an opinion in which it denounces the risk of bogging down the OLAF staff recruitment procedures. If this point is not resolved rapidly, it would result in gravely and perhaps irreversibly compromising the whole mechanism for fighting against fraud. A Commission decision may be taken this week.
The consultative committee on appointments is responsible for examining candidatures for a post and establishing a list of candidates considered "able" to hold the post proposed. Then, the authority invested with the power of nomination chooses between the candidates. The OLAF director-general (currently Franz-Hermann Brüner) holds this power of nomination. He requested that the consultative committee also be specific to OLAF and awaits, in order to be able to attribute the head posts, for this specific committee to be set in place. A proposal along these lines was developed by OLAF and the European Budgets Committee. The consultative committee would comprise the Commission's secretary general, the director-general for personnel, the director-general for OLAF, a representative of the Court of Justice, a representative of the Court of Auditors and an external consultant. The dispute is said to have come about, according to the OLAF surveillance committee, due to the opposition of the Commission's secretary general to this proposal. The OLAF surveillance committee stresses that David O'Sullivan requested "application of internal procedures" which would, according to the surveillance committee, amount to "assimilating OLAF to a Commission service" and hence "compromising the independence of the Office and of its director". The surveillance committee calls on the Commission to "confirm its agreement to the procedure proposed by Mr Brüner".
Discussions also covered the chairmanship of the consultative committee on appointments. According to the Commission, the chair can only be held by the Commission secretary general. The Commission stresses that, as the consultative committee is only "consultative", the fact that it is chaired by the secretary general of the Commission does not hamper the broad margin of manoeuvre of the OLAF director. It recalls, moreover, that OLAF is a "Commission service". The OLAF surveillance committee, and apparently Mr Brüner himself, maintain, however, that this would compromise OLAF's autonomy. The committee should, they say, be chaired by the director general of OLAF. They stress that the decision to create OLAF specifies that the director of OLAF should "fix the conditions and terms of recruitment".
The high-level group that prepared the creation of Olaf recommended that "the necessary measures be taken to ensure Olaf's budgetary and administrative independence from the outset".
Olaf does not want to comment for now, although, speaking before the Committee on Budgetary Control last month, Olaf's director denounced interventions by the Commission in its recruitment. The European Parliament will this week provide its point of view on the functioning of Olaf (see previous article)
In conclusions adopted Tuesday last, the Council also expressed concerns "at the delays observed regarding the transition and transformation of Uclaf into Olaf". Recalling that "the aim of the legislator is to give Olaf total independence in carrying out its operational functions (…) and an administrative and budgetary autonomy", the Council "notes that this objective has not yet been sufficiently achieved"