Friday

29th Mar 2024

OLAF reform could weaken EU fraud supervision

The European Commission wants to scrap the supervisory committee of the EU anti-fraud office, OLAF, and replace it with a more political body drawn from the commission, the European Parliament, member states and the European Court of Auditors.

The idea was put forward by administration commissioner Siim Kallas last week in an internal memo seen by EUobserver, with a formal proposal due in January.

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  • OLAF has a reputation for holding nice conferences, but doing little to chase up lost EU funds (Photo: European Commission)

The news comes one day after the EU on Wednesday (30 November) appointed a new OLAF supervisory committee on the old model for the next three years.

The old-model team is made up of five non-EU fraud specialists drawn from Hungary, Spain, Sweden, Germany and the UK, charged with guarding the anti-fraud office's independence.

The new model would take two "political level" staff from each of the four institutions, to guard OLAF autonomy and improve inter-institutional relations.

The OLAF director general would also appoint an "internal controller" to deliver "opinions" on the fair conduct of ongoing probes, while the Court of Justice would examine OLAF investigations once they have been completed.

"Internal control is not intended to be just a facade", the memo states.

Mr Kallas' spokeswoman said the new structure would boost efficiency while helping to create "a strong OLAF that can work in peace."

The move is part of a wider OLAF reform process started in 2003, just as journalists uncovered large-scale embezzlement at the EU's statistical wing, Eurostat.

The reforms gained added impetus from a July 2005 court of auditors study that criticised it for being badly governed and wasting resources on "inconclusive" reports.

OLAF founding father unhappy

Socialist Austrian member of the European Parliament Herbert Bosch has welcomed prospects of greater parliamentary involvement in OLAF, but said Mr Kallas' overall scheme is aimed at evading democratic oversight.

The veteran MEP is the author of the 1998 "Bosch report" which laid the blueprint for OLAF's existing administrative structure.

Commenting on the internal controller idea, he said "This is a bad joke. It's impossible. We have to have something external."

He said a four-pronged inter-institutional committee makes it unclear who should act in the event of a complaint against OLAF, proposing a parliament-only committee with a secretariat based in Luxembourg instead.

Mr Bosch added that the EU's inability to police cash flow is undermining public faith in the European project and enlargement policy.

"During Eurostat, there was a culture of non-regulation. Has this culture really changed?" he asked. "We are having the tenth, the 20th plan to change the situation, and these plans will come into force only when the current commission is already drawing its pension."

New boss or old boss?

The negative publicity surrounding OLAF has put the spotlight on an ongoing recruitment procedure to see who will run the office for the next five years.

The commission in September put forward a shortlist of five names, including current chief Franz-Hermann Bruner, with EU diplomats saying Mr Kallas would like to see Mr Bruner reappointed.

Parliament in October voted for Swede Bjorn Eriksson as its top choice, with both institutions now waiting for member states to hold their hearings of the five short-listed men.

The Luxembourg, UK and Austrian EU ambassadors might hold the interviews on 9 December or early next year.

But there is confusion over which of the three institutions would have the final say in the event of a disagreement.

The regulation governing the process states in English that the commission shall make the appointment "after consultation" with the other two bodies, but the words are "apres concertation [after discussion]" in French and "nach abstimmung [after agreement]" in German.

The head of the commission's translation department, Juhani Lonnroth, says that the original drafting language of any legislation takes priority in the event of a discrepancy.

The commission's publications office indicated there is no formal "bibliographic note" on the source language, but "preparatory work" was carried out in French.

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