Prodi faces fraud allegations
European Commission President Romano Prodi faced tough questions from MEPS in a closed session of the European Parliament on Thursday over a set of fraud charges brought against a key EU agency.
The fraud allegations centre on double accounting, fake contracts and slush funds at Eurostat, the Commission’s statistical agency.
It is alleged that top ranking Eurostat officials embezzled more than ?1m in EU funds by diverting the monies into unofficial bank accounts and away from Budgetary controls.
Several MEPs have demanded the resignations of Pedro Solbes, the economic affairs commissioner, who holds the brief on Eurostat.
Mr Prodi pledged when taking office that he would rid the institution of fraud and corruption. Critics say he has failed to live up to that promise.
Chris Heaton-Harris, Tory MEP, said: ‘I have been reading the reports this evening and there has obviously been a serious breakdown of financial control of Eurostat.
‘Essentially, Commissioner Solbes, the man in charge of Eurostat is toast. He has got no future in his job and the problem is that this now will extend because the reforms put forward by Neil Kinnock, which look good on paper but simply are not working in practise and the accounting system is so full of holes that this thing is still allowed to happen.’
However, Mr. Heaton-Harris did add: ‘I’m not convinced this will damage the reputation of the EU.’
Some MEPs have also demanded former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, now EU head of reforms, and Germany’s Michaele Schreyer, in charge of financial control, should be held accountable.
On Friday, the EU Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee is due to question Mr Prodi.
It is believed most of the irregularities occurred before Mr Prodi took office in 1999.
