The EU has a serious problem. Another official accepted lavish gifts and entered into inappropriate relationships

The scale of financial fraud in the EU is growing. This concept includes both the illegal use of EU funds, embezzlement and corruption, which can affect even high-ranking officials, as shown by financial scandals in recent years. The European Public Prosecutor's Office, the European Anti-Fraud Office and other institutions building the EU structure for combating financial fraud, although they improve efficiency, are not able to catch all such cases. According to experts, this undermines citizens' trust in the EU.

- The European Union unfortunately has a problem. Katargate exposed the situation in the European Union, showing that corruption situations exist even in the Presidium of the European Parliament. We hear about another macabre situation, when an important official of the European Commission accepted gifts from some countries and built improper relations with them as an EU official, in short, he was susceptible to corruption. Unfortunately, I do not see any positive effects of the functioning of these assumptions, which were adopted by Mrs. Roberta Metsola, the Speaker of the European Parliament, immediately after the Katargate scandal - Bogdan Rzońca, a member of the European Parliament from Law and Justice, tells the Newseria agency.

The EP President has proposed a series of anti-corruption reforms in 2023 regarding lobbying practices. Last year, the Parliament signed an agreement with the EPPO, the European Public Prosecutor's Office, under which it allows for internal investigations into corruption. This is the result of the so-called Katargate scandal from 2022, in which 20 people, including MEPs, were accused of accepting bribes to promote Qatar's interests in the European Parliament . Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the investigation into the Huawei company, in which investigators are looking into the case of possible gifts given by the company's representatives to MEPs.

- We hear again that former Commissioner Reynders has terrible problems, because an investigation is being prepared against him for money laundering. The Commissioner who was responsible for the rule of law in the European Union. So unfortunately we don't have good information here, there are corruption situations in the European Union, OLAF [European Anti-Fraud Office - ed.] does not catch all of these situations. It is very sad that the Union is losing significant funds in this way - says Bogdan Rzońca.

According to last year's Special Eurobarometer, Europeans still see corruption as a serious problem. 65% believe that high-level corruption cases are not sufficiently prosecuted, and only 30% believe that government efforts to combat corruption are effective. Three out of four companies believe that too close links between business and politics lead to corruption (79%), and that corruption undermines competition among companies (74%).

The EP, adopting in May a report on the protection of the financial interests of the European Union - the fight against fraud, stressed that organised crime groups are increasingly exploiting corruption to infiltrate public administration and gain economic benefits. High-level corruption, including in the EU institutions, not only affects the financial interests of the Union and the entire EU economy, but also undermines citizens' trust in democratic institutions in both the EU and the Member States.

- We also heard about a very unpleasant incident related to buying opinions for positive assessments of the Green Deal. Huge amounts of money were spent on non-governmental organizations, experts, professors, scholars to praise the Green Deal, while in reality there was nothing to praise or not necessarily only absolute praise could flow towards the Green Deal. We also needed some critical mass for this undertaking and maybe we would be in a different place today and entrepreneurs would not complain about the Green Deal - assesses the MEP from PiS.

The European Court of Auditors drew attention to a similar issue in its April report, finding that EU funding for NGOs is not fully transparent. Information on this is fragmented and unreliable, and there is a lack of transparent data on NGO lobbying and advocacy activities. Between 2021 and 2023, NGOs were awarded €7.4 billion in key EU internal policy areas such as cohesion, research, migration and environment, of which €4.8 billion was provided by the Commission and €2.6 billion by member states. However, the auditors stressed that these figures should be treated with caution, as they lack a reliable overview of all EU funding provided to NGOs.

- The scale of abuse in the European Union is unfortunately expanding and it concerns both very high-ranking people in the European Commission, in the European Parliament, and also MEPs. There are investigations, arrests, explanations, but it also concerns spending money for non-governmental organizations that simply work for the benefit of certain groups in the European Union, not the entire European Union. So I have to say that these actions, which were supposed to prevent corruption in the European Union, have so far failed - says Bogdan Rzońca.

According to the EP resolution, the total number of cases of fraud and irregularities reported by the competent EU and national authorities increased by 9% in 2023 compared to 2022. This is a record high and continues the upward trend of the previous five years. The total funding related to these cases reached EUR 1.9 billion and was 7.3% higher than a year earlier.

The EP called in its resolution for greater efforts to combat financial fraud. It proposes, among other things, strengthening cooperation between the relevant Commissioners, Directorates-General in the EC to increase the effectiveness of this fight. Effective protection of the EU's financial interests, according to the majority of MEPs, also requires accelerating the digital transformation, which facilitates the sharing of knowledge and access to data and their processing. Cooperation is also necessary between administrative and judicial authorities conducting investigations at both the EU and Member State level.

- I believe that the European Parliament should have greater budgetary authority, but we are currently, and this must be said directly, in a major dispute with the European Commission, which has been given such competences that it has stopped listening to the European Parliament. This is very dangerous and it resonates on many levels of relations between the European Commission and the European Parliament. Figuratively speaking, the European Commission has "broken away" from other institutions of the European Union, it does what it thinks and this is removed from the control of the European Parliament. This is very dangerous for the future of the entire European Union. Because we, as the ECR, are for the European Union, but a Union of fraternal nations, solidary nations, equal nations and states, and not blackmailing some countries by the European Commission and giving greater benefits to other countries - indicates the MEP from PiS.

Source: