Home What's New Speeches & Articles Newsletter - Sep 2008 Biography Diary Contact Information Photo Album Parliamentary Highlights Publications Links MEPs' Transparency   Conservative Party Latest News from Conservatives.com Conservative Party Website
		Tory MEPs let EU Commission know enough is enough Wednesday, 5 May 2004 East Midlands Conservative MEPs have finished their Strasbourg session by again raising concerns relating to the Eurostat investigation. They said that the Commission had been given a clear message by the Motion for a Resolution on Eurostat adopted on 22 April 2004, which had: •   stated that the Commission had failed to draw the appropriate conclusions from the Eurostat affair, and that it had failed to accepts it political responsibility either collectively or individually •   made clear Parliament's intention to continue to monitor and scrutinise future developments in the ongoing Eurostat investigations and potential legal actions, with a view to proposing further reforms. The European Parliament voted yesterday not to censure the European Commission over the fraud at Eurostat by 515 votes to 88. Both East Midlands Tory MEPs voted for the motion. East Midlands MEP Chris Heaton-Harris, who is spokesman for the Budgetary Control Committee, said: " My message to the Commission is enough is enough. We have been actively engaged in raising concerns relating to Eurostat, and do not believe that the Commission has accepted political responsibility for the failures that have become clear from this affair. I was elected on a Conservative Party manifesto commitment to oppose fraud and mal-administration in the European Commission. I therefore had no alternative but to support this censure motion and am proud to have done so." Roger Helmer MEP added: "Commissioner Kinnock was tasked in 1999 with cleaning up the Commission's accounting, and eliminating fraud. He has failed spectacularly. His main achievement has been to persecute the successive whistleblowers who have revealed the appalling depths of the Commission's failure. So far the only person arrested in the Eurostat scandal has been the journalist who broke the story. We get nothing but excuses and cover-ups. How am I supposed to justify to my constituents in the East Midlands the fact that the admitted level of waste and fraud in the EU institutions, at 5 billion euros, is as much as the UK's annual net budget contribution? I'm afraid its business as usual in Brussels."