EU Financial Management

I endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. Whistleblowers have a sad record in the EU. Paul Van Buitenen, who exposed the fraud that brought down the Santer Commission, was sacked by Commissioner Kinnock, now the noble Lord Kinnock. Incidentally, Mrs. Cresson, who was criticised for giving money to her dentist and whose pension was suspended, is now on half-pension, we are told. Marta Andreasen, the first qualified accountant to be employed as chief accountant by the Commission, refused to sign off the accounts for the previous year when she was appointed. She was suspended by Commissioner Kinnock. In fact, I think it is scandalous that a Labour commissioner sent officials scurrying around Brussels in taxis issuing suspension notices to their employees—shades of Militant, dare I suggest. Marta Andreasen said that there were no systems in place to make sure that money was spent properly and that a double accounting system should have been in place. I am proud that Paul Van Buitenen went to Edward McMillan-Scott, a British Conservative MEP, and that Marta Andreasen went to Chris Heaton-Harris, another Conservative MEP. It is Conservative Members of the European Parliament who have been taking the lead in the fight against fraud. I am sure that when we form our new group with allies from eastern European countries, we will be even more effective in taking that forward. Most recently, Dorte Schmidt-Brown raised concerns about EUROSTAT, the EU statistical service. It systematically siphoned off £3 million and kept two sets of books at its headquarters in Luxembourg, but no one was fired. All the staff concerned were redeployed and are now either still employed or drawing their pensions. As the new chief accountant of the European Commission, Brian Gray, has said, one can change the system, but it has proved impossible to change the culture. There is an environment of complicity. Why rock the boat when every whistleblower is suspended? If people keep quiet, they will keep their jobs. I have a practical suggestion for the Minister about benchmarking—a term that I do not really like. It would be very useful when monitoring what is going on with the finances of the EU if each directorate-general of the Commission were individually to measure progress. The present system of issuing a positive or negative statement is too broad a brush. We would get much more value from more detailed information from the directorates-general.