Britannia Radio

18 November 2009 OLAF Snoops Only on Enemies   The EU’s so-called fraud investigation unit (known by its French acronym as OLAF), “does not snoop on its friends”, according to its director.    But we now know it does snoop on its enemies.  UKIP has been targeted.    Former German judge F-H Bruner’s comment that OLAF did not snoop on its friends came during a public session of the European Parliament’s Budget Control Committee early in the 2004-2009 parliament.   Mr Bruner was defending OLAF in answer to a question of mine about the failure of OLAF to gain any meaningful control over EU fraud.    This puppet of the EU regime has still to register its first major success.  Not once in the ten years or so since OLAF was established has it succeeded in bringing a successful prosecution against the masterminds in a major EU fraud, and recover the many millions of euros defrauded.  Not once.     Yet more than 80 per cent of all EU expenditure of taxpayers’ money is never verifiably audited.  Nor can it be, since the expenditure in controlled by government departments and NGOs (non-governmental organisations) in member states.      More money remains unaccounted for than Britain has contributed in total since we joined, and that now runs at some £2 million an hour, day and night.   The bureaucrats don’t care and the situation won’t change.  The reason for the present corrupt system is simple – for the price of a few days’ criticism in the media every year, the institutionalised looting of public funds can continue uninterrupted for the powerful elite with their fingers in the till.    Why else did the Bulgarian deputy prime minister (no less) come to my office in Brussels earlier this year to complaint bitterly about new limitations being put on EU spending in her country?  Remember her ‘justification’?  “We are no more corrupt than anyone else”.   Why else are so many of the commission’s bureaucrats way beyond retirement age?  Again, simple.  They are terrified to retire and risk newcomers exposing what has been going on.   All of which explains Mr Bruner’s foolish admission to me some years ago.  Now that remark has come to haunt him.  I and others have not let him forget it.  It explained in a few words why the Court of Auditors will never be able to sign off the EU’s annual accounts.    OLAF’s list of failures is substantial.  The sums involved run into many billions of euros.  Some of Mr Bruner’s more spectacular disasters have become infamous – the Italian butter scam, Eurostat, VAT carousel fraud, Tacis, Greek olive groves…need I go on?    Even worse is OLAF’s use of the EU regulation which says any sum of less than one million euros of taxpayers’ money which is unaccounted for can be ignored.   Mr Bruner’s remark about not snooping on his friends was bad enough.  But recently a clarification has come to light.  He may not snoop on his friends – but he is now openly snooping on his critics and enemies, even when the sums allegedly involved are pitifully small.  Only OLAF’s friends apparently benefit from the one million euro cut-off.   OLAF’s role is now openly political.  It is being used by the Commission, with the willing help of Mr Bruner and his team of snoopers, to investigate anyone involved in European politics who has not signed up for the ‘European project’, as they like to call it.  Criticism is unacceptable.  Outright opposition must be smashed.  Any means of destruction will do.    Forget parliamentary democracy and open challenge.  The Lisbon Treaty enshrines the unitary state.  Opposition will not be tolerated.    News last week that a team of OLAF snoopers had been sent to the UK to investigate UKIP prompted the following letter to Mr Bruner.  I do not expect a reply.     FH Bruner, Esq Director General, OLAF European Commission Brussels 12 November 2009     The Sunday Times reported last weekend that you have authorized OLAF staff to come to Great Britain to investigate the alleged misuse of EU parliamentary allowances by UKIP MEPs.   This specific targeting of a group of MEPs who are – by definition – known to be against your precious ‘European project’ and its monumentally corrupt cost to British taxpayers, is a form of bigotry which raises the most profound questions.  Such blatant discrimination about which people you choose to investigate and which you will not is no more than barefaced prejudice.    Rather than upholding the rights and duties of the only elected assembly the EU has, castrated as it is, such discrimination and bigotry further undermines any pretence of accountable democracy.  But then we all knew long ago that the EU hates being held accountable for anything.   As for your role in all this, in all fairness I hardly need remind you that members of your own staff accuse you of faking investigations.  So there must even be doubt about what is actually going on.   However, if this news is correct, it highlights the importance of the questions I put to you on 5 June 2009 (when I was a sitting MEP), and your unacceptable refusal to answer them.   It also reinforces your infamous reply to me at a meeting of the EP’s Budget Control Committee when you declared with pride and in public that you (OLAF) did not “snoop” on your friends.  The clear implication, now, is that you do snoop on those you perceive as your critics or enemies.   May I remind you of three of the questions you failed to answer before, and ask that you do so now they have become even more relevant.  They of course apply only to the previous parliament.  What the new parliament decides, or wants to know, is a matter for them.   So, answers please:   The number of members of the 2004-09 parliament in each of the following political groups who are, or have been, subjected to OLAF investigations:                                                                  i.      Socialists                                                               ii.      EDD-EP [centre-right federalists]                                                             iii.      ALDE [liberals]                                                             iv.      UEN [united European democrats]                                                              v.      Ind-Dem [some UKIP and others]                                                             vi.      Non-Attached [independents]                                                           vii.      ITS [short-lived group of right wing independents]                                                          viii.      UKIP                                                              ix.      National Front (France)                                                               x.      Vlaams Blok/Belang (Flemish)   Please include all relevant names in all relevant categories.   The names of all members of the Budget Control Committee who were subjected to OLAF investigations before the 2004 election or have been since.   The names of all MEPs who have been investigated by OLAF for the paid employment of their wives, husbands or homosexual partners.  How many have subsequently been successfully prosecuted and/or refunded the public monies involved?  On what lawful basis were any such prosecutions initiated?   Finally, I have to raise the status of Siim Kallas yet again.  This time I am concerned with his lack of legal authority, his term of office having ended on 31 October 2009.  Indeed the following question applies to all Commissioners except Mr Barroso.   What action is OLAF taking to ensure that no public money is deployed in any way whatsoever on the authority of former Commissioners who are no longer in office?   Ashley Mote     ……………………………………   FOOTNOTE:  The last two paragraphs of this letter are the subject of a separate posting on Action Stations – click on icon top left on website home page     To respond to, or comment on this Email, please email ashley.mote@btconnect.com Click www.ashleymote.co.uk to visit the site now.