Eurostat

27.9.2016

Question for written answer E-007147-16
to the Commission
Rule 130
Frank Engel (PPE)

In June 2003, the Financial Times launched the ‘Eurostat scandal’, claiming that Eurostat was using fraudulent practices and siphoning off money into secret bank accounts, among other things. The Commission President at the time, Romano Prodi, promised the European Parliament that the Commission was going to hit hard and fast. The Director-General of Eurostat, a director and a number of other officials were dismissed. OLAF scrutinised Eurostat’s accounts. The case was referred to the courts of a number of countries, including France.

On 8 July 2008, the Court of First Instance ordered the Commission and OLAF to pay EUR 56 000 in compensation to the former director-general and director for breaching the principle of presumption of innocence in their case. The French courts of first instance and of appeal also found against the Commission. The Commission’s judicial persecution of Eurostat has finally come to an end: its appeal was definitively rejected on 15 June 2016.

How will the current Commission repair the damage done to the former senior officials whose careers have been shattered by the affair?