News from
David Sumberg MEP
Autumn 2002
Conservative Member of the European Parliament for the North West of England
LETTER FROM EUROPE
HERE WE GO AGAIN – ANOTHER COMMISSION COVER UP!
Back in 1999, the last European Commission had to resign amid accusations of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism. The new Commission was installed in September 1999 with a mandate for reform. The person appointed to oversee this task was none other than Commissioner Neil Kinnock, the former Labour party leader.
Now, three years later, against a background of assurances from Mr Kinnock’s spin doctors that radical reforms are in the pipeline, we have the unedifying case of Marta Andreasen. Ms Andreasen was hand-picked by the Budgets Commissioner to be the Commission’s Accounting Officer, one of the highest-ranking budget officials in the EU. Amazingly, she was the first ever qualified accountant to hold the job. She started her new £80,000 a year job in January 2002 and from the outset spotted glaring irregularities that culminated in her being asked to “sign off” or approve accounts she knew to be incorrect. She said that “Failures abound and are a waste of public funds.”
When she refused to sign off the accounts and raised her objections within the Commission, she was initially ignored and then subsequently placed under enormous pressure to “be a good civil servant and shut up.” When she continued to highlight the problems she had uncovered, she was eventually removed from her post and relocated to an admin job. At this point Marta Andreasen wrote to MEP’s to complain about her treatment and to reveal the discrepancies in the accounting procedures she had uncovered. Commissioner Kinnock himself quickly instigated disciplinary proceedings against her and asked the Commission’s legal service to see if she could be gagged and stopped from talking to MEP’s.
In most other organisations, Marta Andreasen would have been congratulated and promoted for uncovering failures and proposing solutions. But the European Commission is not like most other organisations. UK Conservative MEP’s invited Ms Andreasen to a press conference in London in early August to publicise her whistle-blowing. We are determined to bring her before a full hearing of the Budgetary Control Committee of the Parliament in Brussels in order that she can confront the Commission with her findings and bring an end to their attempted cover-up.
ON – OR OFF – YOUR BIKE
I sometimes think that those who are passionate about the European ideal have few friends in the one place where they ought to be certain of support – in the European commission. The Commission is the unelected body of civil servants and former politicians which has the responsibility of putting forward proposals for new European laws. And on so many occasions it falls into the trap of making Europe a laughing stock.
Take the latest idea coming from the Commission which would blame car drivers for all accidents affecting cyclists. Motorists would have to pay compensation and damages in all collisions, thus increasing costs of car insurance premiums by about £50