Disappearance of EUR 1.6 million at the development organisation AWEPA

11.10.2017

Question for written answer E-006368-17
to the Commission
Rule 130
Olaf Stuger (ENF)

At AWEPA, a European organisation of MEPs and former MEPs which supports democracy in Africa, EUR 1.6 million has disappeared. The organisation’s financial officer has vanished without trace. The Acting Director has filed for bankruptcy. The Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa has its head office in Amsterdam. Over the past two years, the Netherlands Minister for Development Cooperation, Ploumen, has given a grant of half a million euros to the organisation. In the five years before that the grants amounted to nine million. Other European countries and the European Commission also give money.

1. How much money has the Commission spent on AWEPA in total?

2. Is the Commission aware of the report that EUR 1.6 million has disappeared at AWEPA, the financial officer has vanished without trace, the organisation has filed for bankruptcy, and all the people who used to work at the offices in Africa have now been dismissed?

3. Will the Commission recover every cent paid and return it to the Member States, and is it also willing to report AWEPA to the police?