EU anti-fraud office targets Brussels and Romania

BRUSSELS - The European Commission was the target of most of the internal investigations last year by the EU anti-fraud office (OLAF), while Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy and Romania accounted for the bulk of new cases opened in member states.

Eighty-four cases of suspected fraud in the commission remained under evaluation or were ongoing at the end of 2007, compared to just seven for the EU council and five for the European Parliament, according to OLAF's annual report out on Tuesday (22 July).

One example concerned an "agent" employed at an unnamed commission office abroad who stole money, fiddled books and tried to corrupt colleagues to the tune of "tens of thousands of euros," the OLAF survey said.

In another case, a retired EU official pretended to live in a different country in order to claim a bigger pension, with an OLAF investigator flying around Europe to find out where the former worker actually spent his time.

The findings were forwarded to national police, with the "agent" blocked from managing EU funds in future - but not sacked - and the retiree docked pension income.

"As the European Commission manages a far greater part of the budget than the other institutions and accounts for most EU officials and other staff, it is more frequently the subject of investigations," the annual report explained.

Meanwhile, Romania topped the list of new cases opened in EU members, with 95 new investigations, while Italy (80), Germany (75), Belgium (72), Bulgaria (52), Spain (42), Greece (41) and Poland (38) also featured near the top of the list.

In proportion to their populations, Belgium, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece received the most new attention from OLAF last year.

The bulk of investigations involve agricultural subsidies, cigarette smuggling and EU "external aid" - projects related to development and humanitarian goals - with OLAF's focus swinging toward external aid last year.

The anti-fraud office itself has in the past been criticised for inefficiency by the European Court of Auditors and accused by journalists and MEPs of hushing up internal EU fraud investigations.

But looking at the higher amount of tip-offs for potential cases flowing into OLAF last year, its German director, Franz-Hermann Bruner, said: "the vast majority of the [European] Commission's staff considers OLAF a pillar of trust."

The anti-fraud unit employed a total of 467 staff in 2007 on a budget of €72.6 million, up from 388 people on €67.5 million the year before.

It recovered €204 million mis-spent EU funds, compared to just €114 million in 2006, with the average length of investigations creeping up from 27 months to 28 months per case.