European Commission President Romano Prodi promised on Thursday to clean up a damaging multimillion-euro financial scandal, but rejected demands that he sack members of the commission.
The former Italian prime minister told party leaders and members of the European Parliament (MEPs) at the European parliament that he was working to "stop the rot."
Prodi spoke of his "sadness" at allegations of slush funds, false contracts and echoes of the scandal which brought down his pre-decessor four years ago.
He said the main blame lay with the former director of the EU statistics agency (Eurostat), whose conduct he called "appalling."
In a message which combined contrition for past errors with determination to right wrongs, Prodi said there would no rush to judgment.
"Additional investigations will be opened to stop the rot once and for all," he pledged. "I didn't hide anything."
But there were no grounds to dismiss Pedro Solbes, the economic affairs commissioner, whose scalp several MEPs had demanded because he was responsible for Eurostat.
Neil Kinnock, the commission's vice president for reform and Michaele Schreyer, the commissioner in charge of the EU's 90-billion euros annual budget, were also cleared by their boss.
The leaders of the main center-right and center-left groups said they were not seeking commissioners' scalps despite evidence of wrongdoing in three separate reports on the Luxembourg-based statistics agency.
"It is premature to arrive at any conclusive judgment," said Pat Cox, the president of the parliament.
"This is a sobering reality check that has revealed gaps in governance that will have to be addressed. Trust is essential."
Reports on Wednesday showed taxpayers' money going astray through double accounting, fictitious contracts and slush funds. There was also evidence that cash had been used to fund perks such as a volleyball team and a riding club. About five million euros went missing between 1996 and 2001 though more than 1.2 million euros were recovered.
Leaving aside the question of personal gain, the commission's Eurostat task force said: "The lack of control with which those funds were managed creates an unacceptably high exposure to the risk of fraud and irregularities."
Euroskeptic MEPs argued that the issue of political responsibility had been ducked by the task force.
"This is not one crook, two crooks or five," said Jens-Peter Bonde from Denmark. "This is a parallel illegal system of financing."
Chris Heaton-Harris, a British Conservative, said. "It's Groundhog Day. By now someone should have carried the can for this.
When Solbes is shown the door, he should leave it open for Kinnock and Schreyer."
Prodi, who came to Brussels pledging zero tolerance of the fraud, cronyism and mismanagement which destroyed Jacques Santer, could take comfort from the fact that most of the trouble at Eurostat seemed to predate his arrival. But it appeared that illegal slush funds were operating until July.
Prodi said the worst aspect of the affair was the behavior of Eurostat's former director-general, Yves Franchet, who he implied had deceived Solbes.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese