Mr President, in its communication the Commission writes that the protection of the Communities' financial interests concerns us all, the bodies and their members at political level, the European and the national public service and their staff. But the need to guarantee equal, effective and deterrent protection throughout the European Union particularly affects the chief contributor, namely the European taxpayer. That is whom we represent here and to whom we are accountable. So I welcome the fact that the Commission document presents an overall strategy showing how it proposes to tackle the misuse of EU funds. However, I think the proposed period of five years, 2001 to 2005, is too long, for if we look back we will see that the issue of fighting fraud has been on the table for a long time now. A constantly growing budget has, unfortunately, also led to more irregularities and fraud. The single market has also opened the borders to fraudsters, while they remain closed for investigation and criminal prosecution. It is true that the regulations for the protection of the Communities' financial interests and on-the-spot checks were adopted, UCLAF was set up and then, one and a half years ago, OLAF was created, and articles on fighting fraud were enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty and then in the Treaty of Amsterdam. These were all good measures, but they are not enough. The fraudsters are still one step ahead of us if not more. The enlargement of the Community and the introduction of the euro could bring further risks with them. That is why we must bring together police, administrative and criminal law resources and instruments, both between the Member States and with the EU. The Commission's four guidelines set out approaches that I find very welcome. First, an anti-fraud legislative policy. Here we must apply Article 280 of the Treaty of Amsterdam as the legal basis and develop it further, in order to bring the different national legislations under a common denominator and accordingly standardise penalties and procedures. The Commission intended to submit a document on this at the end of November. I have not received it so far. But above all, the legislation must be clearer, to prevent law-breakers from exploiting any loopholes. Secondly, a new culture of operational cooperation. It is important that all the Member States pull together. After all, more than 80% of the fraud in EU monies is carried out in these states. So far it has not been the case that they have joined forces, because otherwise they would all have ratified and therefore enforced the 1995 convention long since. Meanwhile parts of it have become out-dated and the Nice summit has not improved matters either. But the Commission also wants to create a new internal culture, as President Prodi promised. It is to be implemented through internal reform. We are keeping a watchful eye on this process. The third guideline is a supra-institutional approach to preventing and fighting corruption. What is at stake here is the credibility of the European bodies. That is a most important point, and here we must emphasise the importance of setting up OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, which is not so very new any more, and of its activities. We must finally remove the obstacles that prevent it from acting independently, especially with regard to recruiting staff and to its own structure. That is equally necessary for the Office and for the Commission. We propose appointing a hearing officer to give some protection to the rights of the accused. We call on the EIB and the ECB finally to accede to the Interinstitutional Agreement relating to OLAF. The system for fighting fraud must finally be perfected by enhancing the penal judicial dimension. We support the Commission's proposal to appoint a European Public Prosecutor as a first step towards creating a European judicial authority, given that this is something Parliament has long been calling for. This Public Prosecutor, assisted by Deputy Public Prosecutors in each Member State and supplemented by a judge in investigative procedures, in accordance with the 'Corpus Juris' expert report, would satisfy the principle of legal certainty and subsidiarity by acting as a kind of investigative and coordination office, without encroaching on the powers of the competent national courts. His remit must be limited strictly to the protection of financial interests; the rules and mechanisms governing his operation can then be regulated by reference to secondary legislation in the codecision procedure. I am aware that there are still many reservations about this. They need to be allayed, because it is only through constitutional and uniform regulations and measures, which the Nice summit did not, alas, produce, that we can tackle these kinds of crimes. I thank the Commission for its efforts and its work ... (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: PPE-DE