Prodi unswayed by Eurostat scandal
EU Commission President Romano Prodi yesterday refused to fire colleagues embroiled in the Eurostat fraud scandal.
Despite a damning report from the Commission’s Internal Audit Service, Mr Prodi said he would not sack anyone as the corruption allegations were groundless.
MEPs insisted on probing Mr Prodi after millions of euros of EU taxpayers’ money were siphoned off into private bank accounts.
The fraud allegations centred 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 one million euros in EU funds by diverting the monies into unofficial bank accounts and away from Budgetary controls.
Several MEPs had demanded the resignations of Pedro Solbes, the economic affairs commissioner, who holds the brief on Eurostat, Neil Kinnock, vice president and commissioner on administrative reform, and Germany’s Michaele Schreyer.
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.
Mr Prodi said most of the apparent irregularities occurred before he took office in 1999.
Yesterday, he said: “I began my term with the slogan ‘Zero tolerance for fraud’. I stand by that pledge. But zero tolerance does not mean summary justice. It does not mean condemning people without a proper inquiry.
“I have not made a career of standing on the bodies of others. I would not manipulate that situation for spin,” said Mr Prodi.
The IAS report said there was a lack of transparency in financial management at Eurostat, and singled out a “total lack of an audit trail (and) the fact that no supervision or monitoring took place.”
It also said the Commission was “ill-equipped to protect itself further against the risk of collusion by third parties, where little controls, if any, are in place.”
David Davis, the Tory spokesman reporting on John Prescott’s Deputy Prime Minister’s Office, said Mr Kinnock ought to resign his post.
“It is high time we ensured that hard-working taxpayers’ money in the commission’s hands is not siphoned off corruptly. Mr Kinnock can no longer enjoy the British public’s confidence in his current post.”
