Luxembourg, 10/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Justice has cancelled the decisions of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) consisting of reserving the possibility of carrying out internal anti-fraud inquiries for their own internal services. The European Commission thus wins the day. It considered that such decisions were contrary to the 1999 regulation on investigations carried out by the European anti-fraud office (OLAF).
The Court considers OLAF can carry out inquiries within institutions or bodies established by the Treaties. The EIB and the ECB are concerned as they were created by the Treaty. It goes on to recall that the EC Treaty confers upon these two financial institutions the independence needed to carry out their respective missions but that this autonomy is not aimed at totally detaching them from the European Community and making them exempt from all rules under Community law. Nothing rules out the fact that the Community legislature may adopt regulations likely to be applied at the ECB and the EIB, it specifies.
The Court also notes that, neither the ECB nor the EIB have shown how their ability to pursue their specific missions in an independent fashion would be affected by the OLAF powers of investigation. Even if OLAF were created by the Commission and integrated into the structure of this institution, the Community legislature has foreseen sufficient guarantees to ensure that OLAF is strictly independent and that it complies with Community law.
European judges then note that the powers of OLAF are clearly defined and specific and that the investigation procedures must take the specific nature of institutions, bodies or establishments into account..
As the decisions of the ECB and of the EIB have the effect of excluding the 1999 application, the Court decided to cancel them, European judges say. The Community legislature was able in all validity to consider that the establishment of a centralised inquiry regime, independent and specialised, was needed to combat fraud, they concluded.