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EU Secretary General and President not interested in fraud
international |
eu |
news report
Friday June 06, 2008 07:38 by Bart Nijs - European Court of Auditors
![Report this post to the editors Report this post to the editors](../graphics/report.gif)
How the European Court of Auditors is treating a mismanagement complaint
Five years ago, an EU Court of Auditors official informed his Secretary General of his suspicions of fraud and blackmail being practiced at the institution. After meeting with a refusal to examine the case, one yeare ago, he urged the Court´s President to react to the Secretary General´s failure to act. The only reaction he received was a disciplinary procedure being launched against him. In a request that the Secretary General of the European Court of Auditors, Michel Hervé, should have received from me on August, 4th, 2003 (which he did not, but that is another, equally fraud-ridden story), I drew his attention to the fact that some of my colleagues, translators in the institution like me, had been blackmailed into accepting an invalidity pension. Their work in the institution had been made increasingly difficult over the years, and at least one of them had been threatened with a disciplinary procedure if she did not accept to become “invalid”. Apart from being intimidation, this also resulted in fraud to the detriment of the Community invalidity scheme. In November 2003, I sent additional information to Mr Hervé.
I mentioned these irregularities, among other indications of mismanagement, to justify my request, the subject of which I cannot go into here. However, the answer I received from Mr Hervé on December 1st, 2003, proved something I had not expected to learn, i.e. that the Secretary General of the EU Court of Auditors refuses to investigate into fraud.
According to Article 248 of the EC Treaty, it is the Court of Auditors´ task to check if the European taxpayer´s money is spent correctly and if the accounts reflecting these transactions are reliable. OLAF, the anti-fraud office to which the Court forwards fraud cases it detects during its audits, is in the first place responsible for combating fraud. The Court of Auditors is not really supposed to engage in fraudulent activities itself.
Nor is it expected to brush aside any suggestion of this having happened. Applying Articles 22, 22a and 22b of the EU Staff Regulations to the Court of Auditors, whenever informed about mere fraud suspicions in his institution, the Secretary General has to report them to OLAF. My above-mentioned request was accompanied by two affidavits in which harassment victims declared invalid confirmed what had happened. Mr Hervé did not express any concern. Worse, he answered he could not be bothered, and did not even think of commenting on the fraud and blackmail. He did so using the following words:
« Je n´entends aucunement entrer dans l´analyse ou le commentaire des hypothèses et constructions que vous établissez dans les lettres auxquelles il est répondu par la présente, examen qui ne pourrait en rien être pertinent pour l´établissement de la présente réponse ».
(“I have no intention whatsoever to go into analysing, or commenting on, the assumptions and constructs in your letters, as this would be totally irrelevant for composing this answer.”)
He confirmed this seven months later, on 30 June 2004, referring explicitly to the passage quoted above:
« Je confirme que ces éléments ne sont pas pertinents dans le cadre du présent dossier. Je citerai à titre de simple exemple l´accusation de chantage proférée à l´égard de certains collègues. »
(“I confirm that these elements, e.g. the blackmail you accuse certain colleagues of, are not relevant in the context of this file”)
On June 30th, 2004, the Staff Regulations obliging him to report the case to OLAF were already in force. Four years later, and five years after my first request, Hervé has not started considering that, being accompanied by the victims´ affidavits, my allegations might be more than just “constructs and assumptions”. But even if they had been just that, he had to notify my “assumptions” to OLAF in 2004.
He did not. And neither did Mr Hubert Weber, the then President of the EU Court of Auditors, when, in a long letter I sent to him in August 2007, I reminded him of his Secretary General´s failure to act . Instead, a disciplinary procedure was launched against me almost four months later (why this hesitation?) for having ventured, among other things, to accuse Mr Hervé. Ten months later, the disciplinary procedure is still in a very, very early stage. It has not even been submitted to the disciplinary council. To the best of my knowledge, the necessity of creating a council charged with treating my case has not even been decided on yet.
After five years of such treatment of an obvious fraud case, the European taxpayer, whose interests the Court of Auditors claims to protect, should know what is being done with his money.
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Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4The story is hardly surprising. In order to be totally independent, the members of the EU Court of Auditors are not allowed to have another job. However, Karel Pinxten, the Belgian member, managed to cheat for seven months! He secretly kept his seat as a mayor of the little Belgian town Overpelt as well as certain functions in Tessenderlo Chemie, a large petrochemical company. I do not know exactly about Tessenderlo, but he took up his function at the Court of Auditors on 1 March 2006 and stayed mayor of Overpelt until 30 September 2006! When this was discovered by the EU Parliament´s Commission on Budgetary Control, Pinxten should have stepped down immediately, and if he did not, they should have forced him to. Leaving such a man in such a position is like appointing a notorious burglar head of the police!
What happened, a number of years ago, when a Belgian official leaked to the press that Pinxten had evaded taxes on the house he had built? He was fired! That is: the official was.
If the whole lot is as corrupt as that, what can we expect for democracy in Europe? What is called democracy will more and more consist of pushing politicians to ignore and betray their electorates by signing treaties they have not read. They will never reveal to us they are signing further restrictions on our freedom and self-determination all the time. But if the Lisbon treaty was good for us, they would not have anything to hide, They would not fail to make it readable. Only cheaters can ask our approval in a language we don´t understand.
Let´s give them a lesson in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and organise grassroots European elections among all the peoples of Europe. We can create our own Europe without those people who ignore us, a truly democratic and transparent Europe, and put the traitors on trial for their Lisbon crime!
Thank you for publishing this vital information on the EU: your courage and integrity deserve the highest respect and gratitude.
The more of the truth we reveal, and the more moral strength we show today the more chance we have to save our future.
Related to this subject I would like to refer to these sources as well:
BBC UK: The European Parliament’s decision on not publicising the audit report on a series of abuses of staff allowances:
“MEPs keep ‘fraud’ report secret”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7266286.stm
“The Lisbon Treaty: Ireland Speaks For Democracy”
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86484
Any proactive ideas how this material can be got into the mainstream media ? The comment line on RTE is 01 2083434 main line is 208 3111. I do know that the comments are circulated within the organisation.
People should phone in and get their friends to do the same and complain that these stories are being kept out of the mainstream and in view of our upcoming amendment to the Constitution that these issues should be in the frame, particularly so as this is the organistion that we will be handing over swathes of power to.
It is Our Constitution (for now) -and our TV licence that we stump up for, as RTE never stops reminding or threatening us to do. And they do have a legal remit to keep us informed. I was happy to see the baby rhino in the zoo keeping well as reported on RTE 1 news on wednesday night, but they should be made feel the heat on this, ring, write email and spread the word to do the same. I done it some years along with others ago on another story and it worked. Am off to do it now.
All the best and many thanks to all,
Mick
I have posted this letter on Indymedia Germany: http://de.indymedia.org/openposting/index.shtml, as it was written in German.