Brussels, 26/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the European Commission said that it was to examine in detail a report by the European official Paul van Buitenen containing allegations of "poor professional conduct" in Commission services, but that, at this stage, the Commission could not reveal the contents of the allegations contained in the document, as they needed checking and that may affect the rights of the individuals mentioned. The Commission stipulates that a team of magistrates from the anti-fraud office (Olaf) would this week meet the cabinet of the Directorate General Administration (DG Admin) to provide elements of the results of its investigation. Olaf and DG Admin will analyse Mr. Buitenen's document to see whether the new suspicions of fraud are sufficiently plausible to deserve a more in-depth investigation, Commission sources tell us.
The Commission recalls that Mr. Buitenen's document was handed to Olaf and DG Admin on 31 August. On 15 February, Olaf provided a summary of its conclusions to the Commission and Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control (Cocobu). More recently, Commission Vice-President Neil Kinnock provided certain details to the members of Cocobu and undertook to inform them on developments in this affair.
The German magazine Stern states that Mr. Buitenen's 235 page document (the revelations of which, it recalls contributed to the fall of the Santer Commission), raises "suspicions" of irregularities in the Statistical Office, Eurostat in Luxembourg, as well as "accusations" levelled at "nuclear inspectors" at Euratom, and the spokesman Jonathan Faull and the then Director General for Education David O'Sullivan, over the "so-called Leonardo scandal in 2000".
Mr. O'Sullivan is said not to have intervened rigorously enough following "irregularities" on the part of the firm Agenor, responsible for the Leonardo programme, said Stern, stipulating that O'Sullivan and Faull had rejected the accusations levelled at them.