Brussels, 30/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday the European Parliament approved the broad outline of the draft directive on the protection for the Community's financial interests under criminal law on its first reading of the Commission's proposal (see EUROPE of 24 May, p. 12) when it adopted the report by Diemut Theato (CDU, Germany) who is the President of the EP's Budgetary Control Committee. Parliament rejected amendments calling on the Commission to add measures to the directive to set up a European Financial Prosecutor as the single authority, initially at least, for making internal investigations within EU institutions. Parliament took on the comments made by Michaele Schreyer the day before, who pointed out that setting up a European Prosecutor is not permitted under Article 280 of the EC Treaty. Ms Schreyer signalled that the Commission would soon be adopting (11 December, Ed) its Green Paper on protection of the Community's financial interests under criminal law and the setting up of a European Prosecutor with the aim of getting the debate rolling again (as failed to happen at the Nice European Council) on amending the Treaties to make it possible to have a European public prosecutor.
Parliament was content to flesh out some of the measures in the Commission's proposal that concern the setting of penal sanctions (for embezzlement and illegal organisations, for example) and the list of crimes that damage financial interests. It again expressed concern that the 1995 convention on the protection of financial interests (used as the basis for the draft directive) has not been ratified by all Member States and can therefore not come into force.