MEPS GRILL PEDRO SOLBES AND CHRIS PATTEN ON EUROSTAT AND CESD.

The European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control decided on December 2 to spurn an advisory opinion on restoring all the appropriations banked for Eurostat. The Committee on Budgets had reduced the funding to 15% for operational appropriations and 10% for administrative appropriations. The second reading of the General EU Budget for 2004 is scheduled to take place during the European Parliament's December 15 - 18 plenary session. MEPs on the Budgetary Control Committee voted for this course of action after a fresh interview with Pedro Solbes, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, as part of the follow-up to the 2001 discharge procedure. Mr Solbes repeated that the main cause of the Eurostat issue was the lack of smooth communications between the Directorate-General and himself. He stressed that the European Commission was in the process of recovering 2 million worth of the 6 million of dodgy contracts between Eurostat and Planistat, whose manager is being investigated by the French courts. Mr Solbes said that in future Eurostat data would be free and available on the Internet.

On December 1, the Committee on Budgetary Control interviewed Chris Patten, Commissioner for External Relations, in the midst of a related issue: a Euro 10 million contract, without any calls for proposals, for the non-profit-making European Centre for Statistics and Development. The CESD was given the job of carrying out, on the basis of an agreement with the Council of Europe, a...