WRITTEN QUESTION E-0560/00 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission. EU fraud.
C 374 E/108 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 28. 12. 2000 (2000/C 374 E/124) WRITTEN QUESTION E-0560/00 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission (29 February 2000) Subject: EU fraud Will the Commission give an estimate of identifiable fraud against the EU budget in each year of the last five available years and also express this as a proportion of the total budget? Would the Commission please give the comparable figures for each of the Member Statesí own budgets so as to enable a comparison to be made and as an exercise in best practice and benchmarking? Answer given by Ms Schreyer on behalf of the Commission (17 April 2000) The Commission would refer the Honourable Member to its last two annual reports on the Protection of the financial interests of the Communities ü Fight against fraud for 1997 and 1998 (1). These reports analyse the cases notified by Member States involving irregularities and fraud against traditional own resources and the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) ü Guarantee section and structural operations. The 1998 report shows that on the basis of the cases of irregularities and fraud notified by the Member States and the investigations carried out by the Commission with the help of the Member States, the budgetary impact was 3,8 % for own resources, 1 % for the EAGGF ü Guarantee section and 0,18 % for structural operations in 1998. It was also found that one fifth of the cases notified by the Member States in 1998 could constitute criminal offences (fraud). On the basis of the data concerning investigations conducted by UCLAF (now OLAF, the European Anti- fraud Office), the budgetary impact of cases relating to expenditure managed directly by the Commission for which there is no system of notification by the Member States is put at 0,10 % for 1998. The Commission feels that fraud against national budgets, for which it has no figures, is something essentially different, thus making any comparison very rash (in the main these are administrative budgets whereas 95 % of the Community budget is ágrantsí). (1) COM(98) 276 final and COM(1999) 590 final. (2000/C 374 E/125) WRITTEN QUESTION E-0565/00 by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission (29 February 2000) Subject: Confidential documents Will the Commission confirm that any of its employees found to have given early sight of a reasoned opinion or other quasi-legal document to an interested party prior to publication would be instantly dismissed? Has this happened in the past?