EP keurt budget Comité van de Regio's goed ondanks fraude (en)

The European Parliament's budgetary control committee yesterday (30 March) signed off the 2002 accounts of the Committee of the Regions - but not without criticism by MEPs.

The approval of the 2001 accounts of the EU's youngest institution was granted only last January since a report by the EU anti-fraud office, OLAF, sited irregularities concerning some tendering procedures and the way in which members of the Committee had their expenses reimbursed.

Although German Christian Democrat Gabriele Stauner, who drafted the report on the Committee of the Regions, said that reforms being taken by the Committee were on the right track, the resolution accompanying the so-called "discharge" said that the actual implementation of these reforms will be verified when it comes to assess its 2003 accounts.

Dutch Socialist Michiel van Hulten announced after the Committee vote that he had written to the Belgian public prosecutor asking him to initiate an investigation into the findings of the EU anti-fraud office, OLAF.