Regular use of pre-accession funding in Romania and Bulgaria

27.3.2006

WRITTEN QUESTION P-1473/06
by István Pálfi (PPE‑DE)
to the Commission

According to a statement by the Romanian Government official dealing with financial frauds and to other reports, more than 15 % of the pre-accession funding provided to Romania is disappearing through corrupt channels. The authorities are identifying irregularities in two thirds of the cases investigated.

In the case of funding under the Youth programme too, fraud has been confirmed: Bucharest cannot produce evidence that the funds were disbursed in a regular manner.

In many cases the Romanian Government does not even provide so much as an explanation, so that the European Union has no chance at all to recover the irregularly disbursed funds.

What measures has the Commission so far taken to put an end to this shocking practice?

Has the Commission identified which of its officials are responsible for the lost money?

On the basis of the investigations to date, to what extent has the use made of EU support in Bulgaria been regular? What results have been achieved by means of the pre-accession funding provided in Bulgaria?

OJ C 328, 30/12/2006