WRITTEN QUESTION No. 75/99 by Jan ANDERSSON Commission correspondence with the Prime Minister of Sweden
Date: 1999-01-27
Institutions: ANDERSSON JAN, European Parliament
Subjects: Community tax, European Commission, Sweden, fraud, information centre, mass media, operation of the Institutions

C 320/124

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

6.11.1999

EUR 10 162 million in 1996 and EUR 9 421 million in 1997. The volume of unnotified aid may therefore be
estimated at EUR 1 016 million in 1996 and EUR 1 601 million in 1997 (these figures exclude agriculture,
transport, fisheries and coal-mining). These estimates are based on the assumption that unnotified aid as a
proportion of the total number of aid measures registered is equivalent to unnotified aid as a proportion of the
total volume of aid granted. A correction also needs to be made to take account of the fact that the year of
registration of an unnotified aid measure is not necessarily the same as the year in which the aid was granted.

When the Commission comes across aid that has been unlawfully granted, it examines whether the aid is
compatible with the common market. If the aid is incompatible, the Commission decides that the Member
State must recover it from the recipient. A table on the enforcement of Commission decisions ordering the
recovery of aid (1982-1997) was published in the 1997 Competition Report (1).

Recovery should not be seen as a penalty, but as a means of restoring the status quo that should have existed if
the unlawful and incompatible aid had not been granted. The Commission is careful to ensure that the decision
ordering recovery is enforced and, if it is not, can refer the matter to the Court of Justice. If, following a
judgment by the Court of Justice finding that the decision has not been enforced, the Member State still fails to
comply with the decision, the Commission may also apply Article 171 of the EC Treaty.

(1)

SEC(98) 636 final.

(1999/C 320/164)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0075/99

by Jan Andersson (PSE) to the Commission

(27 January 1999)

Subject: Commission correspondence with the Prime Minister of Sweden

In a letter dated 8 January 1999, the President of the Commission criticised the Prime Minister of Sweden
because of what he had said in an interview on the Swedish news programme Rapport on 6 January
concerning certain revelations about irregularities in the Commission. This letter received significant coverage
in the Swedish media because it said that the Prime Minister should not have examined the facts of the case and
that his comments could harm the European Union. It is an astonishing letter, firstly because the Commission
President refers to an opinion which the transcript of the programme shows the Prime Minister never
expressed, and, secondly, because the Commission President is objecting to a head of government’s obvious
right to comment on these details of irregularities which have become the focus of attention.

In view of this, will the Commission state whether it is normal Commission practice, in relations with Member
States’ heads of government, to write to them telling them what they have, or have not, the right to say in the
media about incidents within the Commission that have come under the spotlight and, as regards the drafting
of such letters, not to be completely clear about what the heads of government concerned actually said to the
media?

(1999/C 320/165)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-0076/99

by Yvonne Sandberg-Fries (PSE) to the Commission

Subject: Commission’s relations with its information office in Sweden

(20 January 1999)

Over a year ago, the head of the Commission’s information office in Sweden wrote a letter to the Speaker of the
Swedish Parliament, calling into question comments made in the media by MPs concerning EU tax. This event
received considerable coverage in the Swedish media at the time. In a letter addressed to the Swedish Prime
Minister, the President of the Commission has criticised a statement that the Prime Minister allegedly made in
an interview for a Swedish news programme in response to revelations by the European Parliament about
irregularities and fraud within the Commission. The letter refers to a point of view which the Swedish Prime
Minister never expressed. As a direct consequence of this interpretation and/or translation error originally
made at the Commission’s office in Sweden, the letter from the President of the Commission has received wide
coverage in the Swedish media.