Call for EU anti-fraud office to investigate MEPs' expenses
The European Parliament in Strasbourg where the document is being kept in a basement room (Photo: European Parliament)
HONOR MAHONY
21.02.2008 @ 13:34 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A report examining the way MEPs use their monthly funds is causing a ruckus in the European Parliament with a call for the EU's anti-fraud office to investigate possible misuse of public money.
The secret report examines a sample group of 167 payments - there are 785 MEPs - and how deputies go about using their staff allowances which amount to up to 17,000 euro a month.
Chris Davies, UK liberal MEP, who saw the report which is being kept under lock and key in the basement of the parliament building in Strasbourg, told EUobserver his first reaction was "a degree of hysteria given the scale of the abuse that is taking place and given the fact that it has been kept secret."
The report is only available to members of the parliament's budgetary control committee and only then if they agree to treat it confidentially, reading it under supervision and being forbidden from taking notes.
The document does not list names but "highlights malpractice by individuals." These include deputies paying the whole of the staff allowance to one person or receiving the money although they do not have any staff.
Mr Davies said he had called on OLAF, the EU's anti-fraud office, to investigate the matter and that it had said it "intended to take this very seriously."
"In my view, if this leads to the prosecution of certain members - OLAF made clear it could get names of the individuals who had been audited - and ultimately their imprisonment (…) if that is a necessary requirement in order to bring about reform, then so be it."
Herbert Boesch, an Austrian socialist in charge of the budgetary control committee, played down the report.
He said it was an "internal audit" that under parliament's rules is not permitted to be made public and that he is not even supposed to comment on it.
"I suspect that there is not one suspicion of fraud because then the document would have to be, following the rules, immediately sent to OLAF."
"It's just rumours," said the MEP, noting that it was up the administration of the parliament to deal with it.
There have been some suggestions that the report is not being public because it could affect turnout in the European elections – an event regularly marked by voter apathy.
The report also comes after MEPs have only recently cleaned up the way they receive travel expenses, a system that previously had been an easy source of money for deputies leading to widespread and frequent negative headlines in the media.
No fraud found, says parliament
The monthly staff allowance is used to hire assistants and trainees for MEPs. It is not against the rules to hire a relative to work in the office or the constituency.
The parliament's spokesperson said "The internal auditor (...) confirmed existing concerns that the system of staff employment for MEPs has become far too complicated, with three different methods of contracting staff and 27 different national taxation, social security and administrative systems involved."
But he underlined that the report "has not revealed any individual cases of fraud."
The secretary general of the parliament, Harald Romer, is expected to put forward a proposal in the near future for a single system of recruitment. This is to come into place immediately after the European election next year.