The inside story of the former European Commission accountant... Euro-fraud flourishes
WORKERS, JAN 2005 ISSUE
Marta Andreasen, the sacked European Commission Chief Accountant, who was voted Accountant of the Year in 2003 after refusing to sign off the Commission's accounts, addressed a large gathering of VOTE NO (to the Constitution) supporters in Westminster in December. The meeting was entitled "Europe needs real reform, not the EU Constitution".
Andreasen began by pointing out that the EU notion of "shared control" over finances in fact meant no control, but rather the shifting of responsibility and blame to the various member states. She said that out of the total EU budget, 15% went towards control of the use of funds, and it was precisely within this area of the 15% expenditure that fraudulence was suspected. It was therefore quite wrong to pass the buck to member countries.
Investigation
Andreasen recalled how in 1998 an investigation concluded that there was mismanagement, and the whole Commission was forced to resign. Reform was promised, but when she joined in 2002, nothing had been done. In particular, a vulnerable computer system open to fraud had been allowed to remain in place. Year after year, auditors repeated their reservations about the regularly recurring errors, and every year it was someone else's fault. Accountants know that an underspend in a budget can hide fraud. Andreasen discovered not just one, but a whole series of underspends. On one occasion the underspend was 15 billion euros, yet in public statements the Commissioner changed this to 10 billion.
The situation today is, if anything, worse. Eurostat, the EU statistics office responsible for crucial decisions on contributions as well as funding, has failed to provide high standards of audit training. The computing issue remains unaddressed; the most recent report of the Court of Auditors confirms the continuing lack of security. Yet OLAF, the anti-fraud office, "cannot find proof to prosecute". And the current anti-fraud commissioner has a conviction for fraud!
Most shocking of all, is the Commiss-ion's abandonment of the principle that an accountant should see all documentation before signing off accounts. When Andreasen refused to comply with such irregularity she was dismissed as "disloyal" and "not a good European".
Her right to petition the EU Parliament was fiercely opposed. It was not easy to create a petition comprehensible to the Parliament, because it had no knowledge of accounting. But that document is still before the Parliament, and is still opposed by Lib Dem MEP Graham Watson, who implied on the Today radio programme that we should not worry about corruption in Brussels as it was a problem everywhere!
People should not think that just because the European Parliament recently asserted itself on behalf of minorities this makes any fundamental difference. Far from providing checks and balances, EU politicians continue to tolerate a corrupt system and are happy to join the Commission in blaming member states.
The independence of the Court of Auditors was equally questionable; they too joined in the blame game. The great majority of European taxpayers are being ignored, said Andreasen. She went on to suggest that the job of a constitution should be to provide an institutional structure, rather than to dictate policies, as this one attempts to do. The Constitution could have been drafted better, but more to the point, there was no need for a Constitution at all in order to arrive at common policies.
Funding
A councillor from Liverpool questioned the value of structural funding. There was no evidence that such subsidies had ever been received in Liverpool. Andreasen replied that the Commission does not care what happens to the money. It cares only to be seen as a fount of generosity, controlling the amounts doled out, but not the use to which funds are put.
Andreasen would not be drawn on wider political implications of the EU. There was no need. Speaking purely from a sense of pride in her profession, she was able to communicate the rottenness at the heart of Brussels. If every profession, industry or trade were to do the same, the defeat of this pernicious constitution would be assured.