European Prosecutor & OLAF is looking for a Director General

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Dat kan interessant worden: 'A European Prosecutor with the authority to
coördinate investigations in different countries.'
Zal toch wel een tijdje duren voor die benoemd wordt?

Groet / Cees

OLAF is looking for a Director General
http://www.neurope.eu/articles/100222.php
18 April 2010 - Issue : 881
I cannot help but continue with OLAF, not only because this column has
various cases which considers open, such as the Athens Airport, which
European citizens paid a German company over €2,2 billion for a project
which hardly cost €300 million, Eximo, a comparatively small case, only
some €20 million, which should have been totally recovered and never
claimed from the German government and the Bulgarian dossiers on
corruption which were full of irregularities and were irregularly
closed, etc. These are cases with which, in due time, we will welcome
the new Director General of the anti-fraud department of the European
Union, and/or, the European Prosecutor.
This time we limit to discuss the open Director General post
(COM/2010/10255 http://tinyurl.com/olafdgjob). The post was opened last
week, rather in a hurry, obviously because the legitimacy of the
appointment of the interim (acting) Director General has been questioned
by the Legal Service of the European Parliament (see New Europe issue
878 of 21 March). In the vacancy announcement we noticed that the
contact person is a German lady, a member of the Cabinet of the
antifraud Commissioner, and that the qualification requirements state
that the candidate must be a prosecutor or judge. This provision
disqualifies the current acting Director General Nick Ilett who is
likely to retire, concluding his European career in the highest grade
and in a relatively young age, at a time when the future of OLAF is
uncertain.
 From within the “house” are at least two potential candidates, both
holding Director positions one French and one Belgian. It is worth
noting that so far the nomination of OLAF Directors was questioned by
many and in particular by former MEP Paul Van Buitenen. In this matter,
after several written questions from Van Buitenen, the Investigation and
Disciplinary Office of the Commission (IDOC), opened an investigation
but its conclusions were never released to the public.
Former OLAF Director of investigations, Alberto Perduca, who left his
post because he did not agree with the methods used for the nominations
of personnel, is a great potential candidate. Indeed at the time there
were suspicions of various irregularities in the nominations, but the
only tangible element that would be enough to annul all nominations was
that one member of the selection board was under investigation. Alberto
Perduca could be a strong candidate but it is for certain that the
“house” will give the “mother of all battles” in order to keep him out.
Otherwise, if Perduca takes to post, the “house” will be turned upside-down.
There are many other strong external candidates in different countries
but, as I was told, they are under the impression that the appointment
will be a compromise between France, Germany and the OLAF leadership,
and not many are ready to take the risk of not being even on the short
list. The short list is important because only those in the short list
are reasonably legitimized to appeal against the decision. The more so
that contrarily to other vacancy announcements, in this case the
selection procedures are not clearly stated. Furthermore, the
composition of the selection committee is not known.
The future of OLAF, now to be considered in the context of the Lisbon
Treaty, much depends on the institution of the European Prosecutor,
about to be created. The Lisbon Treaty provides that one of the first
competences of the European prosecutor will be the protection of the
financial interest of the European Union. Until now, OLAF has rather
unclear competencies since at the same time has judicial and executive
powers, without practically any control.
The European Prosecutor will be the independent body which who will
assess the OLAF dossiers and decide whether to refer to (national)
justice or not. At the same time the European Prosecutor will have the
authority to coordinate investigations in different countries. In this
way OLAF will be deprived of a substantial part of its uncontrolled
authorities.
Last but not least, on the “hunting” for the opinion of the Legal
Service that upgraded diplomas from German Police Academies to
University level degrees, OLAF informed us that they conveyed our
request to the Legal Service of the European Commission which considered
it as an “Access to Documents” request (Regulation (EC) 1049/2001) and
that OLAF has no objection on the release of the document.


LETTERS

In your article concerning “The Journeys of Bulgarian OLAF Dossiers”,
(New Europe issue 880, April 4, 2010, p. 40) you refer to me as “the
former right hand of the legendary OLAF investigator Alberto Perduca” In
that respect, please allow me to point out that I am not the right hand
of anyone. I am a Commission official working in OLAF since 2001, and
reporting to his immediate superior who, for 8 months (7/2007 – 2/2008),
happened to be Alberto Perduca.
Marco Pecoraro

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