91998E3052

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3052/98

by Ursula Stenzel (PPE) to the Commission

(2 October 1998)

Subject: ECHO

The members of the Committee on Budgetary Control sharply criticised the Commission in their hearing of Commissioners Bonino, Liikanen and Gradin on the ECHO fraud cases.

Can the Commission say when the internal assessment of all potential future cases of this nature, mentioned by Commissioner Liikanen in the committee meeting, will be available?

Once the assessment is completed, will the Commissioner be able to guarantee that such occurrences will no longer be possible in future?

Can the Commission explain convincingly, and in a form comprehensible to EU citizens, why the UCLAF report was not handed over to Parliament in its entirety?

Answer given by Mr Liikanen on behalf of the Commission

(20 November 1998)

The Commission has carried out a detailed inquiry into the use of external technical and administrative support. A first overview of the results was presented to Parliament's Committee on Budgets on 5 November 1998. The budgetary authority will be provided with more detailed information in time for the second reading of the 1999 budget.

The Commission is doing all in its power to ensure that the evaluation referred to by the Honourable Member will be available shortly, bearing in mind the time needed to collect and analyse the results of the current inquiry.

The Commission will ensure that measures are taken to remedy identified irregularities on a permanent basis.

As stated by Mr Santer at the first part-session in October 1998, the Commission, together with Parliament, is looking into ways of providing Parliament with more information on inquiries conducted by the Task Force for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention while observing the need to avoid prejudicing people's rights and breaching the confidentiality of the inquiries and the secrecy of formal investigations.

Here, the President has already taken the initiative of transmitting the report by the Task Force for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention direct to Parliament's President.