Brussels, 29/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - In adopting a report - by 467 votes in favour, 11 against and 9 abstentions - by Paulo Casaca (PES, Portugal) on the follow-up to the European Commission discharge for execution for the 2001 budget, the European Parliament mainly finds Commissioner Pedro Solbes responsible for errors committed by the Commission in the management of the Eurostat fraud affair. Following a very small majority (175 votes for, 174 against and 126 abstentions), parliamentarians regret that Mr Solbes "didn't act sooner on the growing evidence of irregular financial management between 2000-03" Parliament will be looking at this affair again in three or four months in the context of its report on the granting of the discharge of the execution of the 2002 budget.
Parliament considers the Eurostat affair has undermined the confidence in the implementation of the commission's administrative reforms undertaken since March 2000 and underlines that the Commission could have acted earlier if it had drawn more attention to the work of the EP and the warnings made by its own officials. The argument according to which members of the Commission did not have access to the alarming information contained in the auditing reports has not in any way convinced MEPs.
The EP recognises the efforts made since 1999 for dismantling the majority of technical assistance bureaux (only 12 remained in July 2003) but considers that in the Eurostat case, there was excessive dependency on outside organisations. That is why it has welcomed the commitment to carry out most tasks from within Eurostat and re-examine the way in which contracts were concluded with external consultants. (EUROPE 27 January p 10 on presentation of Eurostat's work programme for 2004 by its Director General Michel Vnden Abeele.
Dietmut Theato says European Commission has to change threshold before future College is established
During an evening session, German Christian Democrat Dietmut Theato , president of the EP budgetary control committee informed those who asked him why after so much criticism, his committee had not asked for the whole of the European Commission to resign or one of the Commissioners. "What would that have achieved? What Europe needs is to get rid of the shortcomings at Eurostat and this Commission has to do it so that the problems don't reoccur. Ms Theato said that "never in my seventeen years of belonging to the budgetary control committee had a discharge follow up report accorded to the Commission caused such problems and raised such fundamental issues. We could say that the ghosts of the past are catching up with us. He declared that if the European Commission had heeded their warnings last year they would have had sufficient time to take measures that it was now trying to implement with astonishing rapidity. She also said that she was particularly worried by the treatment meted out to whistle blowers (those who denounce the irregularities or fraud in institutions). She claimed that they are not sufficiently protected and that was not fair that in most cases they were obliged to prematurely leave their jobs, whereas those who are possibly guilty remain in their jobs on full salaries.