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Outrage grows at EU treatment of whistleblower
The Daily Telegraph ^ | 06/07/2005 | Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 

Posted on 07/05/2005 10:09:00 PM PDT by ScaniaBoy

Euro-MPs expressed outrage yesterday over the treatment of an EU official driven from her job for exposing widespread fraud at the European Commission's Eurostat data office.

So far, no Eurostat official has been punished for the diversion of £3m of taxpayer funds into illegal accounts over three years ago in a scam described as a "vast enterprise of looting" by investigators.

All the accused - mostly French officials - are still working for the EU or have retired with full pensions.

But the EU accountant who helped uncover the Eurostat abuses, Dorte Schmidt-Brown, fled home to Denmark after being subjected to a campaign of threats and harassment.

Lord Kinnock, then adminstration commissioner, said she had been treated "disgracefully" and sent a personal apology - after initially dismissing her claims as groundless.

Yesterday the European Court of First Instance refused her claim for redress and ordered her to pay her own costs.

Chris Heaton-Harris, a Tory MEP and leading anti-fraud campaigner, described the verdict as "disgusting", accusing Euro-judges of closing ranks to defend the EU machine in every single case involving whistleblowers.

He said the EU's anti-fraud office had brushed the scandal under the carpet, dropping plans for a final report revealing what happened to the missing money.

"They're covering it up, hoping we'll all forget about it," he said.

Romano Prodi, then Commission president, pledged to leave "not a single stone unturned" to reach the truth.

Yet MEPs on the budget control committee still have no idea where the money went, though it is known that small sums were diverted to a riding club used by Eurostat insiders and lavish expenses in the US and Caribbean.

Jens-Peter Bonde, a Danish MEP, said the only two people have ever been "punished" for the affair: the whistleblower herself and the German journalist who broke the story, Hans-Martin Tillack, who was arrested by Belgian police on the basis of charges now proved to have been trumped up by the Commission itself.

The police seized Mr Tillack's computers, telephones, address books and five years of investigative files, exposing his inside sources. In his recent case, the European Court also ruled in favour of Brussels, even though seizure of a reporter's notes are a breach of European human rights law.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: corruption; eu; europeanunion; olaf; tillack
Comment by Kate Rankine in Business pages (Daily Telegraph):

We all know what absolute power does

The tale of Dorte Schmidt-Brown is a sorry one, even for those diminishing fans of the European Commission. She is a Danish official who was hounded from her job after exposing endemic fraud in the Eurostat data office. Yesterday she had her turn at the European Court of First Instance but was sent packing with a large bill for legal costs. No wonder Euro-MPs got so cross about her plight yesterday.

A long list of whistleblowers either sacked by EU bodies or driven from their jobs can attest to the nasty reflexes of the Brussels machine, and in every case the EU's tribunals have refused to rectify the injustice. In Mrs Schmidt-Brown's case, it didn't seem to matter that Lord Kinnock, then personnel commissioner, admitted that she had been treated "disgracefully" when she tried to alert her superiors to the Eurostat scam. She was threatened and eventually fled to the safety of Denmark, a traumatised wreck. Eventually she was vindicated after investigators later uncovered "a vast enterprise of looting" at Eurostat.

Over £3m had vanished into illegal accounts and Brussels acknowledged that it had no hope of reaching the truth without a criminal inquiry armed with subpoena power. Yet three year later, nothing has been done. MEPs still have no idea where the money went. The EU investigation has fizzled out, if it ever really started.

The officials, who were accused, are still on full pay, or playing golf on full pension. The whistleblower alone has paid the price. And lest we forget, so has the German journalist who broke the astonishing story. He was arrested, losing five years of investigative files and computer data in an illegal seizure. Oh yes, the European Court ruled against him too.

1 posted on 07/05/2005 10:09:01 PM PDT by ScaniaBoy
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To: ScaniaBoy

Outrage is not good enough. Pitchforks, tar and feathers are what is needed.


2 posted on 07/05/2005 10:09:54 PM PDT by ScaniaBoy (Part of the Right Wing Research & Attack Machine)
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To: ScaniaBoy
All the accused - mostly French officials - are still working for the EU or have retired with full pensions.

France is truly a corrupt little country.

3 posted on 07/05/2005 10:17:02 PM PDT by RJL
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To: ScaniaBoy

And the US is supposed to sniff their WHAT???


4 posted on 07/05/2005 10:45:08 PM PDT by Waco
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To: ScaniaBoy

The Clintons must be running the EU, too.


5 posted on 07/06/2005 12:47:27 AM PDT by Mind-numbed Robot (Not all that needs to be done needs to be done by the government.)
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To: ScaniaBoy

..."described as a "vast enterprise of looting" by investigators."
The investigators were the looters? "J" school graduates.
I miss Grace Mitchell. She could teach a rock to write.


6 posted on 07/06/2005 4:37:39 AM PDT by em2vn
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To: ScaniaBoy

The EU is just another UN - corrupt, elitist, unaccountable.


7 posted on 07/06/2005 7:16:13 AM PDT by LibFreeOrDie (L'chaim!)
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