EU Parliament calls for stronger fraud controls in Brussels and member states

The European Parliament’s budgetary control committee has called on European Union institutions to toughen their efforts to fight EU fraud, concluding that there is “a long way to go”. Approving a report from Austrian socialist MEP Herbert Bösch, the committee said that the European Commission should review its policy of decentralising responsibility for financial management. It also suggested separating competences for the budget, accounts, financial control and combating fraud, now all under one Commissioner. The committee said it had been “stunned to learn” that in EU agricultural frauds costing €198 million half the products supposedly generating subsidies “could not be identified.” A key problem, said the committee, was the shared management of EU funds, under which the Commission decides on funding but delegates payment and control to member states. Governments should “bring their supervisory control systems up to par”, it said and the Commission should police payments more rigorously, “launching infringement procedures and following them through”. It called for one Commissioner to be given responsibility to fight rule-breaking, “partly in view of enlargement”, which will see 10 eastern and southern European countries join the EU on 1 May, some of which have poor fraud controls. Despite its reservations, the committee recommended that the parliament discharge the Commission’s handling of the EU’s 2002 budget.