President Prodi, Neil Kinnock, Pedro Solbes and Michaele Schreyer knew much more than they let on regarding the "Eurostat" scandal, alleged the Financial Times on Tuesday, a few hours before an exchange of views by the Three Commissioners and the EP budgetary control committee on the case. This was particularly the case on the most recent case of the presumed embezzlement of Community funds via the "data shops" in some Member States (EUROPE 17 may p 12 and 20 May p 11 and 22 May p 10). The FT singles Mr Franchet, the Director General of Eurostat out, transferred on 21 May at DG Administration for the duration and effective functioning of the investigation by the Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). Mr Franchet said that he had informed Mr Prodi, Messrs Kinnock, Solbes and Ms Schreyer was "particularly well briefed", writes the FT. the paper also asserts that Mr Prodi was aware of the serious problems at Eurostat, where "in a letter written last September, he points our that the Commission raised concerns about possible wrongdoing at the department ". Reijo Kemppinen,, Mr Prodi's spokesman described the allegations as "scandalous and mistaken" and that the allegations against the Commission was balderdash and poppy cock. He stressed that there had never been information by Mr Franchet to the President or to the Commissioners that had been questioned. Mentioning the letter referred to in the FT, the exchange of letters between Mr Prodi and the MEP Freddy Blak (Denmark), Mr Kemppinen said that in his letter the President had indicated in the Eurogramme affair that the case had been sent to OLAF on the initiative of the Commission in June 1999, a year after the Eurostat official, Ms Schmidt Brown had contacted the Office to raise his worries on the same issues to her. In his letter (a copy was distributed to the press), Mr Prodi gives assurances that in regard to the ongoing investigation, "neither I nor any of my colleagues have access to any information about this procedure".
Speaking on behalf of himself and his colleagues, Pedro Solbes informed the budgetary control committee of his worries concerning the different aspects of the case (Eurogramme, eurocost, CSED-Community) and explained that when he was at the parliamentary committee on 11 February, he was not aware of the "Datashops" issue, of which OLAF had informed the Commission at the beginning of May. he then looked at the different measures taken since and explained that he could not provide a conclusion on the OLAF investigation and the action taken by the French and Luxembourg legal systems which were still ongoing. He did admit that in this affair, "it is clear to us that the system has not functioned properly, mainly in two respects: the treatment of the internal audit reports by the services, in relation to the Commission, and the flow of information from OLAF to the Commission".