WRITTEN QUESTION E-2806/01

by Gabriele Stauner (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(9 October 2001)

Subject: Charges of favouritism against the Land government in Schwerin

The news magazine Der Spiegel (Issues 35/01, 37/01 and 39/01) charges the Deputy State Minister of the North German Land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Helmut Holter, with involvement in favouritism and speaks of a Schwerin black hole into which EU monies have disappeared.

1. Is the Commission investigating allegations

(a) that there were serious irregularities in the award of a 15 million contract to the BBJ company for services within the framework of technical assistance from the European Social Fund?

(b) that funding for the further training undertaking SBW from the EU's ADAPT programme might have been particularly generous because the wife of now sacked Secretary of State Joachim Wegrad was a manager and partner there, while the wife of the Deputy State Minister was employed there as a social worker?

2. Does the Commission have any plans to nullify contracts and reclaim monies?

3. Can the Commission confirm that it conducted an investigation against the BBJ as long ago as the mid-90s for misappropriation of assistance funding? If so, what was the outcome?

4. Is the Commission investigating allegations that the non-profit Schwerin BBJ GmbH diverted monies to combat unemployment into real property projects of another BBJ subsidiary in Brussels?

5. Can the Commission indicate the amount of payments which firms and companies belonging to the BBJ Group have received from the Community budget in the past five years?

Answer given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(3 December 2001)

As part of its audit and control work, the Commission will investigate whether the awarding of the most recent technical assistance contract to BBJ was made in conformity with Council Directive 92/50/EEC of 18 June 1992 relating to the coordination of procedures for the award of public service contracts(1) and in particular Article 11 thereof, which under certain circumstances allows the award of a public service contract by negotiated procedure.

In line with the principle of subsidiarity, the Commission is not informed about the funding of particular projects. It is the Member State which is responsible for the approval of particular projects and contracts for technical assistance. This was also the case as regards the technical assistance contracts signed between German Länder and firms and companies belonging to the BBJ group during the last programming period. There is no obligation to inform the Commission automatically about details of these contracts.

For the same reasons, the Commission has no detailed information on projects awarded to SBW by the Ministry of Labour of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

By letter of 30 August 2001, the Commission requested information from the Land, in particular on the allegations concerning the BBJ contract. No reply has been received to date. At the same time, the Court of Auditors of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is preparing a report on the BBJ and SBW contracts. Therefore, the questions of whether the contracts have to be declared null and void or whether money has to be reclaimed cannot be answered at this stage.

In the so-called Flathus case, a case of fraud which happened in Thuringia in the mid-1990s and in which a BBJ company was involved, the Commission did not continue with its own investigations once the German authorities withdrew the projects concerned from European Social Fund (ESF) co-financing.

The Commission is not aware of allegations which would concern investment decisions taken by a private company.

The European Anti-Fraud Office has indicated its intention of checking for possible irregularities with regard to technical assistance contracts with companies forming part of the BBJ Servis network in Europe.

(1) OJ L 209, 24.7.1992.