BBC interview van 3 oktober 2002 met Marta Andreasen, voormalig hoofd-accountant van de Europese Commissie

www.sp.nl

BBC interview van 3 oktober 2002 met Marta Andreasen, voormalig hoofd-accountant van de Europese Commissie

BBC programme HARDtalk with interviewer Mr Tim Sebastian, shown on BBC World Thursday 3 October 2002 at 03.30, 08.30, 11.30, 15.30, 18.30, 23.30 hours GMT

My guest today was chief accountant for the European Commission, but only for four months. She was removed from her post in May and suspended in August, after highlighting major flaws in the Commission's much criticised accounting procedures. Is she a whistleblower who was treated with contempt by a dark and secretive bureaucracy or a troublemaker?

Marta Andreasen, welcome to the programme. Romano Prodi, the Commission president, says you didn't do the job you were hired to do. He is right, isn't he?

Marta Andreasen:
Well, it depends on what is his view of the job I was hired to do.

TS:
His view is that you were hired to fix problems and instead you've created them.

MA:
I was hired to be the Accounting Officer of the Commission. The Accounting Officer is the only responsibility named in the Treaty of the European Communities. It is a very important role. I had responsibility for the management of all the funds entrusted to the European Communities, about 98 billion euros. The financial regulation establishes my responsibilities very clearly. And I set out to follow these responsibilities.

TS:
And if you had problems, you were to tell your superiors and you were to work to fix them, but instead you decided to make public your grievances and your problems, which wasn't part of your job description, was it?

MA:
No. I started to work, and established urgent needs for reform. And there has been criticism about the accounting and the financial management in the European Commission…

TS:
That was known, before you got there.

MA:
It was known, it was known for many years. For six or seven years the Court of Auditors has been criticising the financial management and the accounts, but nothing had been done.

TS:
You discovered that in four months? You were only there for four months.

MA:
Sure. It was very evident, very evident. I mean, for an accountant - it's the first time that the European Commission has a qualified accountant in the post of Accounting Officer. And for a qualified accountant it takes a very short time to realise that the accounts that the Commission presents to the public every year are not supported by an accounting system.

TS:
Now why go to the press with this? Why not just tell your superiors and work with it in the system? Because the Commission says you flouted staff regulations. You made public statements, reflecting badly on the Institution, which, in the terms of your contract, you have no right to do.

MA:
Well, I did not go to the press with my complaints. I…

TS:
…But you did go to the press. You've talked to the press, you've given interviews, you were at a press conference.

MA:
Well, I will explain when I went to the press and why. I, first of all, when I saw the problems, I thought it was urgent to resolve them. So I thought it was my duty to first of all raise the awareness of my hierarchy, including the budget Commissioner mrs Schreyer, and proposing urgent reforms and solutions…

TS:
…within the system.

MA:
Within the system. So I communicated verbally and in written, in a number of documents, to my superiors and to the budget Commissioner, my complaints. When I didn't get any response for this, I wrote to Romano Prodi, Loyola De Palacio and Mr Kinnock, who are the president and…

TS:
…deputy presidents.

MA:
…the vice-presidents.

TS:
And what did they say?

MA:
They did not respond at all. And this was at the beginning of May. And at the end of May, on the 22nd of May, Mr Kinnock made the Commission decide on my withdrawal from the post.

TS:
You were summoned to a disciplinary hearing on August the 29th, to put your case, to put your … but you chose not to do that. If you have a good case why didn't you do that?

MA:
I was summoned on the 29th of August only to say if I agreed or not to be suspended. I did precisely avoid going to this hearing, because they wanted only to hear me on my views on a suspension.

TS:
But you would have been able to put your arguments. It was…

MA:
No.

TS:
…an opportunity.

MA:
I wasn't able to put my arguments on the infringements of which they accused me. They were trying to, they only wanted to deal with the suspension.

TS:
How did you know? You didn't go. How did you know what they were…?

MA:
Because I had a letter from the person who was to hear me, where he stated clearly that this was not going to deal with the subject or the infringements that allegedly I had committed, but only with my views on the suspension. I thought this was not legal at all. Because you cannot call a thief, when you put him into jail, to ask him what he thinks about being put into jail without dealing with the charges that are asking, or making him go to jail.

TS:
But the Commission says they considered what you said, that you shouldn't have taken your complaints directly to the Court of Auditors. You had no business going directly to the Court of Auditors. Why did you do that?

MA:
Well, this is not true. I went to the Court of Auditors when I didn't get response from the president and the vice-presidents of the Commission.

TS:
So you could have gone also to the head of the European Parliament. But you didn't do that. You could have gone to OLAF, which is the fraud department that ivestigates mismanagement and fraud within the EU. But you chose not to go to them either. My point is that there are a number of things you could have done within the system, and it's their point as well, and you chose not to do it within the system. Why not?

MA:
Well, I think you need to understand what is the system. They give the wrong view on the system. Precisely one of my roles was to have the relationship with the Court of Auditors.
Any person in any organisation, private or public, who is in charge of the accounts, and who is in charge of the treasury, has to have the closest contact with the Court of Auditors or with external auditors.

TS:
Yes, you could have developed that in time. You were only there for four months.

MA:
I didn't want to…

TS:
Did you want to change everything in four months?

MA:
No, I wanted to make aware of the steps that needed to be taken urgently. There were urgent changes that needed to be made. For example, the system was vulnerable, and this affected the daily payments that we were making out of the budget.

TS:
But they say they were making changes. Romano Prodi, the Commission president, says "We are making reforms. Everybody understands that it's serious. We are really changing procedure, we are really changing it. There is no institution in Europe at this moment that is carrying out such a deep revolution as ours. That's the Commision president.

MA:
Well…

TS:
…Is that not true?

MA:
No, this is not true.

TS:
No?

MA:
Nobody can claim to the world that they make changes in an organisation if they first don't take measures to make the computer system on which the financial management is based, secure and coherent.

TS:
But it can't all be done overnight, can it? I mean, you have said you believe that Neil Kinnock is playing an important role in reform. You've said that. So you do think that reforms are being carried out within the system. Your own record is telling a newspaper. "I believe Neil Kinnock is playing an important role in reform."

MA:
Well, my statement there was referring to his responsibility of reform. Absolutely.

TS:
That he is playing an important role.

MA:
That he has an important role.

TS:
And he is carrying it out.

MA:
Well, I cannot say this, because from my point of view, to carry out a reform, after a Commission has had to resign because of financial mismanagement, the first step anybody should take is ensure that their computer system where you process these financial transactions is reliable.

TS:
He says "we are doing our damnest to ensure there are accountant changes to address complaints about wrongdoing. Any evidence from staff is treated seriously and there is career security for genuine whistleblowers." For genuine whistleblowers. That's what he says, Neil Kinnock, deputy-president of the Commission.

MA:
Yeah. Well…

TS
…You don't buy this…

MA:
I think Kinnock has failed first of all to implement reforms. He has failed, after three years, to have a coherent and secure accounting system. After three years.

TS:
Did you already know that after four months? Or however long it took you to find this out? I mean, doesn't it take four months for someone to get their feet under the table, never mind to find out what is wrong with a huge bureaucratic institution like the European Commission?

MA:
Well, I think that, as I have said at the beginning. If you are an accountant, things that become evident very soon.

TS:
One of the complaints that they have about you is that you didn't disclose information about your being suspended from your previous job at the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Why didn't you disclose that suspension?

MA:
I disclosed it. My…

TS:
In writing?

MA:
Not in writing.

TS:
Why not?

MA:
Because I continued to be an officer for the OECD until the time the contract was over.

TS:
But you were suspended of the post?

MA:
I was suspended. But I only said I was an officer for the OECD and I mentioned the situation that I was living during the personal interviews.

TS:
But you didn't mention the fact that you had been suspended.

MA:
In the personal interviews, I did.

TS:
But not in the written application.

MA:
In the written application, I couldn't make mention of this.

TS:
Why not? There is always a space where you can put in any extra relevant information, isn't there?

MA:
Well, this is not a form. I wrote a letter.

TS:
You wrote a letter. But you didn't think it was worth mentioning?

MA:
Well, I think it is my right to mention it or not. Because I disagree with the suspension that the OECD imposed to [on]me. It's a suspension without a salary for 15 months, which is ridiculous. With no basis. But because it is an international organisation with diplomatic immunity, I have no legal recourse.

TS:
Why were you suspended from the OECD?

MA:
Because I was in the middle of an accounting reform. And this reform implied defining new open balances for the balance sheet of the institution. And this was an important decision to be made by the secretary-general and his deputies. Because the open balances of a new system would differ from the ones…

TS:
…but that's not a reason for suspending you. You were actually suspended because you made very serious allegations, didn't you? Personal allegations about people who were … allegations that funds had gone missing.

MA:
No.

TS:
And these turned out not to be true.

MA:
This is not true.

TS:
You never made any allegations that funds had gone missing?

MA:
No. I never made allegations.

TS:
No allegations at all about any people.

MA:
Absolutely not. I made allegations on the system needing reform and the reforms that I implemented needed a decision on the open balances. The OECD then brought an
external firm, Arthur Andersen, to confirm if my reform was good enough. And they confirmed my reform was good enough and very necessary.

TS:
Now, Price Waterhouse Cooper announced in an external audit at the OECD which they carried out - this was in 2001 - concluded the organization accounts were true and fair, so what was your problem?

MA:
Price Waterhouse concluded they were true and fair one year after I left, but with a lot of reservations, which they don't show publicly. And Price Waterhouse has said, publicly, that they were unable to review opening balances of the year for which they were hired.

TS:
They haven't said that.

MA:
They have said that.

TS:
They haven't said that publicly.

MA:
They have said that to the newspapers. It has been published.

TS:
You were offered a chance to appear in the independent judges within the OECD framework. But you chose not to do that, again. A similar to your reaction to the Commission. Why do you keep refusing to go to these hearings when you are given a chance.

MA:
I went to a hearing. You have the wrong information. I went to a hearing with this panel of judges, which are not independent.

TS:
They come from different countries.

MA:
They come from different countries but they belong to, they form a tribunal which is totally internal and is under the authority of the secretary-general. The same person who was issuing the accusations against me. So they are not independent. I went to a trial and they judged that the minimum sanction that should be applied to me, for things that they said were proved, is that I should be suspended. And I was suspended on the basis of their statement for 15 months without salary. Do you think this is normal or this would occur in normal organisations? Middle Age treatment.

TS:
Isn't this the same kind of trouble making there at the OECD as you are now doing at the European Commission? It is a mess, isn't it? It's a bureaucratic mess. You come in to an organisation, again, similarly in the OECD as in the European Commission. Everybody knows that there are problems. And you come in, and in both organisations you've managed to create more problems.

MA:
I don't think I have managed to create more problems. I think I have surfaced the problems, made people aware, and made people aware that there is need for urgent reform. This is not making trouble. I didn't go to the public to talk about these problems. I went internal in the system, to my hierarchy. To the president of the Commission and the vice-presidents. Then to the Court of Auditors and finally to the Parliament. And I will tell you, I only, in the meantime, the Commission went out to the press and went out to the Parliament and said that I was incomepetent and I was [a] troublemaker. So I wrote to the Commission, saying that they should defend me from public defamation. Because this is provided for in the staff regulations. They didn't respond. They didn't respond at all. So I decided I had to defend myself.

TS:
None of the problems you had at the OECD you thought worth mentioning in your letter applying for the job at the European Commission. These are huge problems, as you've said you appeared before a panel. These are large problems. But you didn't think it was worth drawing to the attention of the European Commission. Something which Romano Prodi now holds against you. He said "she was hired and she didn't tell us why she was pushed out of her previous job.

MA:
Well, they knew perfectly well that I was pushed out and the reasons. Because they went to the OECD and asked for references. And, because Mrs Schreyer, when she hired me, she offered me first a temporary contract which I was not prepared to accept. Because I told her that to lead a reform I would be in a very difficult position with a temporary contract, compared to all the rest of the officers who have a job for life. And she said I would have a hundred per cent support from the management and I wouldn't have the situation I had at the OECD. She was very clear in her statement. So she cannot deny she knew about my situation. And I think I was precisely hired because I had gone through a reform at the OECD, I had the competence to do it and I also have the strength of character not to be pushed to do things that I do not want to do.

TS:
You talk about your strength of character. You were, soon after arriving in the European Commission, you were asked to sign off on the 2001 accounts. You refused to do that. Why?

MA:
Basically because at the end of the first months I saw that without a reliable accounting system. We couldn't publish, or issue, reliable accounts.

TS:
You could see that straight away?

MA:
Yes.

TS:
In April you asked for a treasury audit.

MA:
Yes.

TS:
And then you claim that trouble started. You claim to have been followed by a team of men. When were you followed?

MA:
Around this month, April, mid-April.

TS:
You were followed on your way to work, on your way back?

MA:
I was followed on my way to work and on my way back to my apartment.

TS:
By how many people?

MA:
I don't like to talk about this.

TS:
But it's important. You've made some serious allegations which the Commission say are groundless… They say it is not true.

MA:
Yeah, yeah. It is easy for them to say this is not true.

TS:
But I am asking for the details of what happened.

MA:
Well, I was followed by two people. And I will not say any more because the Commission can say whatever they want, because I didn't carry with me a camera to film the people.

TS:
But why would they follow you, why would the Commission follow you?

MA:
I don't know, just to intimidate me.

TS:
And if you felt intimidated, why didn't you go to the police? Did you go to the police?

MA:
I felt I was intimidated. I would go to the police if there was any risk for my life. I felt they were just trying to make me feel afraid so I would stop requiring a treasury audit. As simple as that.

TS:
So you drew the conclusion that with no evidence at all. This was your suspicion. You never talked to the people who were following you, did you?

MA:
No, absolutely.

TS:
And you never went to the police, which would have been a normal reaction…

MA:
I don't think…

TS:
…of someone being followed.

MA:
No, I don't think that people who are followed every day go to the police for any reason.

TS:
Things came to a head May the 23rd. Neil Kinnock told you to leave. He said the justification for that was the breakdown of relations between you and the Budget Commissioner. Relations have broken down, haven't they? Your position is now untenable at the European Commission, isn't it?

MA:
The relationships on the 23rd of May from my point of view were not broken at all. It was the position of Mr Kinnock, and I suppose based on Mrs Schreyer's claims. I said to him "this is Mrs Schreyer's view, it is not my view. She should have to prove why and when and on what basis she is saying the relationships were broken. If she is saying this because I asked for a treasury audit, was not prepared to have a treasury audit, then it is her problem. I cannot justify this.

TS:
How bad do you think the accounting procedures are in the European Commission? You've said unlike the Enron and Worldcom, they can at least trace transactions You can't do so in the EU accounts no system in place for tracking adjustments. Are you saying that there could be fraud on the level of Enron and Worldcom in the European Commission?

MA:
Yes.

TS:
That big?

MA:
Yes. I mean, it is immeasurable. You don't have a system to record the transactions properly. You know, you have a balance sheet that the Commission presents every year, with its assets and liabilities, that is built on the aggregation of spreadsheets. Have you ever seen this? I don't think…

TS:
Have you ever seen it?

MA:
No. I think the shop at the corner doesn't have this accounting system.

TS:
But at the same time it's a supposition. You don't know if there is fraud, do you? You are saying there is potential fraud. But you don't know, it could be fine, couldn't it? Beyond what the Court of Auditors has pointed to already as mismanagement and their own failure to sign off on the accounts for seven years running. But you don't know that there is massive fraud in the system, do you?

MA:
I have said, and I repeat: "The system is open to fraud," Which is worse, which is worse. It is like going to your bank and somebody is telling you that the safe boxes are open. You have to prove if somebody took the money away. But the fact that they are open makes it easy to have fraud or money going away. It's the same thing.

TS:
…How worried are you?

MA:
…This is open to fraud. More than that, there is no traceability, which means that if there were fraud, we wouldn't be able to identify it. More than that, the people who have brought evidence on fraud - because there are people who have gone to OLAF with evidence of fraud - can have their documentation easily made disappear. Because there is no system, there are no registered transactions, there is no numeric sequence in the transactions. Any evidence you produce, the Commission can say it never existed.

TS:
How worried are you that you are being used for political purposes? You know, you've got the Conservative MEP Chris Heaton-Harris, who is funding you, and who brought you over to Britain, and paid your travel and introducing you to the press. And they are using it as an instrument to beat the European Commission with. How happy are you about that?

MA:
I think, first of all I will tell you he didn't pay my travel. For you to know and for the public to know. Secondly, the person who has used this politically, is Mr Kinnock. He decided to bring up this issue that I was supported by the Tories and this was a Tory move, because he wants to play this politically. The Commission has never given an answer on the facts that I have raised. I have asked…

TS:
But you have never put down the fact in writing, fully, have you?

MA:
I have put the facts in writing…

TS:
Never documented it.

MA:
Yeah, indeed I have. To my hierarchy and to Mrs Schreyer and to the Court of Auditors.
So, yes, I have done it. And the Parliament and the public have just to ask Mrs Schreyer to produce all the letters and all the documents that I have sent to her.

TS:
And you are going to give new evidence to the European Parliament?

MA:
I am going to deliver my evidence when I have the opportunity of a hearing.

TS:
All right. Marta Andreasen, thanks very much for being with us. Thank you.

Transscript: Ries Baeten

Zie het BBC interview in Real Video