Serious shortcomings still affect the protection of the Union's financial interest

The Budgetary Control Committee adopted today unanimously the Report regarding the protection of the European Union's financial interests and the fight against fraud in 2012, with Monica Macovei as EPP shadow rapporteur.

Many serious shortcomings still affect the protection of the Union's financial interest and undermine the fight against fraud at the EU level:

• Collecting reliable and comparable statistics at EU level remains difficult since Member States continue to use different criteria,
• The rate of judicial actions taken by Member States following OLAF investigations remains insufficient,
• The lack of dialogue between OLAF and Directorate Generals led for instance to financial indicators for the rural development that excluded 99,83% of cases from its investigation selection procedure.

Member States still need to ensure a higher rate of convictions in cases involving offences against the EU financial interests.

Once again this year, I asked the Commission to publish on its website the beneficiaries from all Member States of EU funds. Greater transparency is crucial for shedding light on fraudulent schemes and deterring fraudulent behaviours. If they know the chances of getting caught and sanctioned are much higher, fraudsters will think it twice before stealing taxpayers' money Monica Macovei

EPP shadow rapporteur Monica Macovei says: "The protection of the Union's financial interests and taxpayers' money is at the heart of my work at the European Parliament and I welcome the initiatives which will pave the way forward in this area such as the implementation of Hercule III, the Directive on the Fight against fraud to the Union's financial interests by means of criminal law and the publication of the Commission study on Identifying and Reducing Corruption in Public Procurement in the EU.”