Brussels, 06/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - the European Commission has reacted cautiously to the decision taken by the European Commission's anti-fraud office (OLAF) to open an external investigation into allegations of misuse of Community financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (see EUROPE yesterday p 10). On Thursday, Chris Patten declared for the Commission that, "It is natural that the independent anti-fraud office of the Commission (OLAF) should itself choose to investigate these allegations, in line with its policy of zero-tolerance".
Mr Patten pointed out that the Commission would be scrupulously checking the "repeated allegations" according to which part of the budget payments were misused. The Commission indicates that they have not yet any more proof of any misuse of funds and that all other information had been discussed with the European Parliament and made public. The Commission added that it was, "conscious of the difficulty of overseeing the final use of such payments in a region in crisis, the Commission set in place rigorous controls, including an IMF monitoring mechanism…as a condition for these payments, it is also being used by the Israeli government for channelling its own resumed transfers to the PA" (see EUROPE 25 January 2003 p 13 on the responses of Mr Patten to CDU MEP Armin Laschet).