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The Commission hopes the Council will adopt the list by the end of the summer

But unusual key legal basis question not fully settled, with first draft text pending

Emergency and temporary measure gives EU until July 23 to find a deal

Belgium's French-speaking south is presented as the poster child for efficient planning

The European Commission announced its support for England in Wednesday's World Cup semi-final against Argentina

Policy implies doubling down on cleaner, made-in-France industrial production

Germany’s chancellor will do ‘everything’ in his power to stop the AfD entering government

Finland’s EU minister spoke to Euractiv about new EU taxes, competitiveness and defence

It aims to offer a single framework to coordinate drone deals done between Kyiv and EU countries

The warnings are the latest in a series of alarms from leaders along NATO's eastern flank

Péter Szijjártó speaks of a flattering offer from electric vehicle firm that made inroads in Hungary when he was in government

The EU executive is cheering for the team with 'many players of Irish descent'

Germany accounted for 5.7% of the global weapons trade between 2021 and 2025

Ten-country coalition wants leeway in Emissions Trading Scheme based on national wealth, fossil-fuel dependence

Council still needs to agree to MEPs' carve-out for end-to-end encrypted chats

Huge leap in number of AI data centres may be needed

The bloc's executive calls on better implementation rather than reopening the legal text

She was awarded Ukraine's 'Order of Europe’, the first to receive the honour

As organisations continue to evolve their cloud strategies, some may choose to work with more than one provider to meet a variety of operational, regulatory or contractual requirements. As AWS marks 20 years of the cloud, we look at how customers working with more than one cloud provider can create secure, direct connections between them […]

Under budgetkontrollutskottets möte på tisdagen hade vi också besök av övervakningskommittén för antikorruptionsbyrån OLAF. I takt med att EU-budgeten ökar, blir riskerna för fusk, bedrägerier och korruption också större. Ändå minskar kommissionen på antikorruptionsarbetet.

Övervakningskommittén (Supervisory Committee of OLAF) rapporterade till oss i utskottet om den översyn som sker över EU:s struktur för att bekämpa oegentligheter och hur samarbetet ska se ut mellan administrativa granskningar i OLAF och utredningar av misstänkt kriminalitet i EPPO. Tre rapporter diskuterades.

Så här löd min kommentar.

“Thank you, Supervisory Committee for these important opinions.

As co-rapporteur on the Antifraud-architecture (AFA) review, I will take one clear message with me: the framework has improved, but ambiguity and fragmentation still weaken results.

The revised OLAF-regulation must clarify OLAF:s (1) mandate, (2) investigation duration and (3) the threshold for reporting suspected criminal conduct to the EPPO. Our objective cannot be merely to exchange information. It must be to protect and recover taxpayers’ money, with stronger accountability for following up OLAF recommendations.

Reforms without capacity is not credible.

So, my question is about the fact that OLAF has had to release 74 posts since 2018 while taking on new responsibilities and while AI require sustained investments.

What minimum staffing and interoperability investment does the committee consider necessary and which measurable indicators should Parlament use to verify that these resources result in shorter investigations, stronger follow-up and higher recoveries?”

Övervakningskommittén konstaterade att personalstyrkan minskat från runt 400 till 300 på tio år. De ville inte som tjänstemän göra bedömningar av vad som krävs, men konstaterade att det naturligtvis blir svårare att uppfylla alla uppgifter om man inte har tillräckligt med personal.

För mig är det obegripligt att kommissionen avlövar OLAF samtidigt som man kraftigt utökar budgeten och riskerna för bedrägerier ökar. Det är som om man inte tar korruption på allvar. Jag får intrycket att kommissionen tror att det räcker med att i papper skriva hur viktig granskning är, utan att behöva följa upp orden med resurser till dem som ska utföra arbetet. Så är det naturligtvis inte.