Committee on Budgetary Control Ordinary meeting

03:44 - 11:40

Andreas Schwab

Are you ready, colleagues? Shall we make a test vote to see if everyone is here? Okay. Okay, the vote is closed and the two members didn't vote, but we have 27 cards inside. Excellent.

So, let's start with the vote under agenda point 3, Agora EU, Article 2 until Article 11, compromise amendment 2. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

That leads us already to compromise amendment 3, which is on page 3. Article 13, compromise amendment 3. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. That's perfectly prepared like that. Compromise amendment 4. In favor? Against?

Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment 5. In favor?

Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment six. In favor?

Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment seven. In favor?

Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment eight. In favor?

Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment one. In favor?

Against? Abstentions? Adopted. And that leads us already to the final vote. And we do it by roll call vote.

In favor, against, abstentions, but with the machine.

One more member to go. Vote closed. So, it's largely adopted with 19 votes in favor and 7 against and 1 abstentions. Congratulations to the rapporteur.

That leads us to the next vote, which is the Union Civil Protection Mechanism and the Union support for health emergency preparedness and response. Our rapporteur is Jonas Sjöstedt. You would like to make a comment? No, thank you very much. So we kick off the vote immediately.

We start with compromise amendment six in favor... Two. It's true, it's true, with two. Compromise amendment two. Thank you.

In favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment three, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment four, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted.

Compromise amendment five, in favor, against, abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment six, in favor, against, abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment seven, in favor, against, abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment eight, in favor, against, abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment nine, in favor, against, abstentions adopted.

Compromise amendment ten, in favor, against, abstentions adopted. Compromise one, in favor, against, abstentions adopted.

And also here the last vote by roll call vote. Okay, 22 in favor, two against, four abstentions. Congratulations, Mr. Schustet. And that leads us to item five, the establishing the single market, no, the report on establishing the single market and customs program for the period 2028-2034. Very important.

Our rapporteur is Dick Eriksson. Would you like to make a comment?

No? Then we come to the vote also here. Here we start with compromise amendment six. In favor? Against?

I think it's rejected, but we will test that. Compromise amendment six. Open the vote. So, that means 15 against, 13 in favor, it's rejected. That means we start now the vote individually.

Amendment 14. In favor? Against? Abstentions? I'm sorry, we have to try that as well by roll call vote or by a check.

So, in favor of article amendment 14, against or abstentions by vote of the machine. There were four votes missing. I close the vote nonetheless and it's adopted, 14. Amendment 91 by Mr. Goetting. In favor?

Against?

Abstentions? So, I would say it's adopted, but let's try it again here so that we have a bit of a safety of understanding. Three votes missing.

So, closed. 15 in favor, 8 against, 3 abstentions. Amendment 92. In favor? Against?

Abstentions? Adopted. 93. In favor? Against?

Abstentions? Rejected. 94. In favor? Against?

Abstentions? Adopted. You want to check it? We can check it. 94, we check it.

It just takes a bit of time, but we have it. So, 94 open.

Please vote. Please vote. 25 votes, we're still missing. I close the vote. And it's adopted 14 to 12.

95 in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. 15 in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. 96 in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. 97 in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. 98 in favor, against, rejected.

99 in favor, against, abstentions, rejected. 100 in favor, against, abstentions, adopted.

16. Adopted. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. 17. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. 101. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. 102. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. 103. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. 18. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. 19. In favor?

Ah, okay. So we come directly to amendment 104. And we do it in favor, against, abstentions rejected. 105 in favor, against, abstentions adopted. 106 in favor, against, abstentions adopted.

107 in favor, against, abstentions adopted. 108 in favor, against, abstentions adopted. 109 in favor, against, abstentions adopted. 110 in favor, against, abstentions adopted. 20 in favor, against...

11:40 - 11:43

Redner 2

20 fällt, wenn 110 angenommen wird. Das fällt bei der 110.

11:43 - 13:55

Andreas Schwab

I apologize. It falls because 110 has been adopted. My mistake. Sorry for this. We do amendment 111 in favor, against, abstentions rejected, but we test it.

111, please. We have to test it. Yeah. Close the vote. It's rejected by 20 votes.

112. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Compromise amendment 7. In favor?

Against? Probably we have to do that as well. We vote by the machine on compromise amendment seven. Close the vote, please. 14 against, 13 in favor.

So we start with 113. In favor? Against? Rejected. 114.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected. 115.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? 116. Rejected.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected. 119.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected. 122.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. 123, sorry.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. 124 in favor, neither has been adopted.

125. Check 123.

No, this, it falls because 123 is adopted. My mistake as well. 125 in favor, against, abstentions, adopted.

126 in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. 127 in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. 128 in favor, against...

13:55 - 14:02

Redner 3

No, no, no, stop. Excuse me, because 127 falls if 126 is adopted.

14:02 - 29:58

Andreas Schwab

Again, 127 falls, has fallen, so because 126 has been adopted. But 128 we will vote now. 128 of Mr. Gotti in favor, against, abstentions. Let's check this. 128, open the vote.

Please vote.

One vote missing, but I close the vote now and it's adopted. 129 of Mr. Cepeda. In favor? And 131, yes, together. In favor?

Against? Abstentions? Adopted. 130 of Ms. Grapini. In favor?

Against? Abstentions? Well, we have to test this. 130, open the vote. Close the vote.

And it's adopted, 130 by 15 votes in favor and 11 against.

Compromise amendment 8. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Compromise amendment 9. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Compromise amendment 10. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected.

151 by Mr. Sanchez. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected.

25 by Mr. Eriksson. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

26 by Mr. Eriksson. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

152 by Mr. Goetting. In favor? Against? Abstentions? We have to check that.

152. Open the vote. One vote missing, but I have to close the vote now. 152 of Mr. Goetting adopted with 18 in favor, 10 against. Amendment 27 by Mr. Eriksson.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Check.

Amendment 27. Open the vote.

Close the vote. Adopted with 16 to 12. Amendment 28 by Mr. Eriksson. In favor? Against?

Abstentions? Adopted. 29 by Mr. Eriksson. In favor? Against?

Abstentions? Adopted. Amendment 30 by Mr. Eriksson. In favor? Against?

Abstentions? I would say adopted, but let's check it. Amendment 30. Four votes missing. Close the vote.

Adopted. Amendment 31. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Well colleagues, let's do it again. You are already awake.

Amendment 31 by Mr. Eriksson. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Amendment 32 by Mr. Eriksson. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Amendment 153. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected.

Amendment 154. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected.

Amendment 33. In favor? Against? Abstentions? To be checked.

Amendment 33. Please vote. One vote missing, but I close the vote now. Rejected. 117.

In favor?

Against? Abstentions? Adopted. 118, in favor? Against?

Abstentions? Adopted. Check? 118, we check. Open the vote.

Close the vote. 16 to 13. Sometimes it's also good to check, but anyway. 120, absolutely. 120, in favor?

Against? Abstentions? Rejected. 121, in favor? Against?

Abstentions? Adopted. 155, in favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. 156, in favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

34, in favor? Against? Abstentions? We have to check 34, by Mr. Eriksson. Open the vote.

Close the vote. It's adopted. Compromise amendment 1, in favor? Against? Rejected.

Check?

Okay, compromise amendment 1 we will check. Open the vote. Close the vote. Amendment 35 in favor, against, abstentions rejected. 36 in favor, against, abstentions rejected.

Amendment 1 in favor, against, abstentions adopted. Amendment 2 in favor, against, abstentions adopted.

Amendment 37 we don't vote on it. Amendment 38 we don't vote on it. 39 neither. Amendment 40 because the compromise amendment 1 or 2? 1 has not been adopted, compromise amendment 2 has been adopted.

Yes. Sorry for this misinterpreted comment. So we will vote on amendment 40 of Mr. Siekierski.

In favor? Against? We have to vote on it. Abstentions? Adopted.

Amendment 41. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Rejected.

Amendment 42. In favor?

Against. Abstentions. Rejected. Amendment 43. Because amendment 42 has been adopted, doesn't need a vote.

Amendment 44 neither. No, 42 has not been adopted. No. So then we vote on 43. In favor.

Against. Abstentions. We check it. Amendment 43 by Mr. Saryusz-Wolski, please. Vote.

I will close the vote now.

16 in favor, 12 against, adopted. Now we come to amendment 45. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Adopted. Amendment 46. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

Rejected. Amendment 47. In favor? Against? Abstention?

Can we check that please, amendment 47? Close the vote. It's rejected because equal votes in favor and against. Amendment 48. In favor?

Against?

Abstentions. Can we also check 48 please? I close the vote. This one is clearly rejected. Amendment 49 in favor.

Against. I have also to check 49 because I can't really understand the majorities like that.

Amendment 49, open the vote. Close the vote. It's rejected, 16 to 12. Amendment 3, in favor, against, abstentions, rejected. Compromise amendment 2, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted.

Compromise amendment 3, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 4, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 5, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. And the final vote, I open the vote.

Close the vote. And it's rejected with 15 to 14. Now we come to the report of Mr. Freund on Erasmus Plus. As always, I would also like to ask the rapporteur if he wants to make some comments. No.

So let's go for the vote.

We come to compromise amendment two. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Compromise amendment four. In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

But as I've been alerted, I will check this amendment, compromise amendment four. Please vote. I close the vote.

With 23 in favor. Amendment, compromise amendment 6, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 7, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 8, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 9, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted.

Compromise amendment 10, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 11, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 12, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 13, in favor, against, abstentions, adopted.

Compromise amendment 14 in favor. Against. Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 15 in favor. Against.

Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 16 in favor. Against. Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 17 in favor.

Against. Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 18 in favor. Against. Abstentions adopted.

Compromise amendment 19 in favor. Against. Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 20 in favor. Against.

Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 21 in favor. Against. Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 22 in favor.

Against. Abstentions adopted. Compromise amendment 23 in favor. Against. Abstentions adopted.

Compromise amendment 24 in favor. Against. Abstentions adopted.

Now we have to turn the pages until the final vote in favor. And now we do it by the machine, please. I open the vote, final vote on Erasmus Plus. Please vote. And I close the vote and it's adopted with 21 votes in favor and four against.

Congratulations. That means that we come now to the report on under item seven, establishing Global Europe. Our rapporteur is Marit Mai.

Would you like to have the floor? No, neither. That will mean that we kick off the vote with compromise amendment 1. In favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 2.

In favor, against, abstentions, adopted. Compromise amendment 3. In favor, against, abstentions, adopted. We come to compromise amendment 3A. In favor, against.

We have to check this. I think it's adopted.

Compromise amendment 3A please vote. Close the vote. It's rejected 16 to 13. That means we start now with the votes on 142 in favor, against, abstentions, rejected. 158, 162 and 163 together in favor, against, abstentions, rejected.

Then we come to amendment 159 in favor, against, abstentions to be checked.

159, I open the vote. Close the vote. And it's adopted with 15 to 14. We come to amendment 160, no. Thank you very much.

We come directly to compromise amendment 4 now.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment five.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment six.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment seven.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted. Compromise amendment eight.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Compromise amendment nine. Adopted.

In favor? Against? Abstentions? Adopted.

Thank you very much. Amendment 117, Mr. Russen. In favor? Against? Abstentions?

We have to check that. 117, I open the vote. I close the vote. And it's adopted with 70. 117 is adopted with 17 votes in favor and 12 against.

115 and 116 have not been voted. We come to the final vote, also by roll call vote. Please vote. And I close the vote. And it's rejected with 11 to 17.

That means that we have been concluding our session of electronic vote.

29:58 - 30:01

Redner 9

Wait, wait, wait, there was one amendment skipped seemingly.

30:01 - 30:03

Redner 6

Yes, I think.

30:03 - 30:05

Redner 5

Sorry, colleagues. What?

30:05 - 30:08

Redner 4

There was one amendment, different ones they say.

30:08 - 30:12

Redner 7

Let me check. 164. 164.

30:12 - 31:51

Andreas Schwab

Colleagues, colleagues, colleagues, colleagues, sorry. The secretariat tells me that we have to do one final vote, which is apparently amendment 116.

I was not aware that this should have been done. But what is now to be done? We have to vote amendment 164. Because Mr. Ruissen did an amendment after the one, no before, before 117. It's the 164 by Mr. Ruissen.

I'm super sorry, but we have to do this vote because the two, the three votes 158, 162, 163 were done, but 164 was missing. Can I kindly ask you to go for 164 by roll call vote? By page five of the last report. It will not happen again. 164 is the amendment of Mr. Ruissen, article 12, paragraph five.

So, I open the vote. 164, yes. It's your report. It's your report, Marit. So, I ask you kindly to do that vote.

There are still five people missing. Four. Five. Seven. And one last colleague has even slipped in his card now.

So, I'm about now to close the vote. I close the vote now and it's adopted. 18 in favor, 10. Doesn't make sense, no. But that we cannot do that anymore.

40:43 - 43:49

Jonas Sjöstedt

So everyone, please your attention, it's time to resume the meeting.

And as the chair has other obligations for a while, I will replace him being the longest serving member present in this meeting. So, dear colleagues, after this intense and interesting voting time, we now continue our session with the presentation and exchange of views over the annual reports presented by OLAF, by OLAF Supervisory Committee and by the OLAF Controller of Procedural Guarantees. First of these reports is OLAF's. I welcome Mr. Ville Itälä, OLAF Director-General, and Mr. James Sweeney, Director of the Anti-Fraud Knowledge Centre, together with all the OLAF team present here for support.

Thank you so much for being with us today. Also with us is the standing rapporteur on OLAF matters, Mr. Dick Eriksson. Välkommen, Dick Eriksson.

Thanks in advance for the contributions to today's exchange of views. The annual report for year 2025 is the first annual report presented by Mr. Clement, but this is not your first time in CONT indeed, Mr. Clement. You are most welcome to come back to us again. We have had long cooperation that's been very fruitful when you have been in other capacities. You have taken up the functions only in February 2026 in OLAF.

Hence, this annual report 2025 refers to activities carried out before your arrival.

However, we appreciate the fact that in this report, for the first time, there are data and information that CONT has been asking for a long time and that we were not provided with before, in particular the data on recovery. There are also other analyses in this year's annual report that have great interest for CONT members, on the OLAF investigative activities carried out on the RRF, with comments on the peculiarities of investigating performance-based instruments, and on recent legislative proposals for access to centralized VAT database that has been discussed here in CONT, not to mention the ongoing process on the overall anti-fraud architecture revision, on which I also would like receiving some update and additional information if possible.

I do not want to take away more time to your from your presentation, so please, Mr. Clement, you have the floor for 10 minutes. Mr. Eriksson will then have the floor for his remarks and questions for five minutes, and this will open up the exchange with questions and comments from the other members present today. I invite the members who would like to have the floor for questions to signal their wish to to speak to the secretariat when they have not yet done so.

Mr. Clement, please, you have the floor for 10 minutes.

43:49 - 56:24

Bernhard Clement

Dear Chair, Mr. Sjöstedt, honorable members of the European Parliament, thank you for inviting me to present the 2025 annual report. Before I set our findings, I want to express my thanks for the positive relationship that CONT and OLAF have enjoyed over the years. We share our common goal of combating fraud, protecting the EU's financial interest, reputation, and taxpayers' money. I look forward to strengthening our ties during my time as OLAF Director-General.

Honorable members, we presented our investigative results on 20th April and we are looking back on a strong year with significant developments for Olaf. 2025 was a year of change for Olaf. Director-General Ville Itälä's term as Director-General came to an end in June, with current Deputy Director-General Salla Saastamoinen guiding Olaf until February this year. I thank them both for their leadership that has helped shape the results I share with you today. We listened to this committee and, as a result, have adapted the report so as to show more granularity in our data.

This includes OLAF's recommendations, recoveries, and trends we investigated. It also contains new features, such as the amount of money returned to the EU budget as a result of our work over the last 10 years. We also draw conclusions and recommend some actions to Member States and EU institutions on what can be done to improve the way they protect the budget. In parallel, we go a bit more into detail in our relations with each Member State.

This is something I would like to develop further. To me, making concrete proposals is particularly important, and at this very moment in time when the future of EU funding is taking shape. We are discussing a new MFF. All the legal bases of the anti-fraud partners will likely to be reviewed. Technological change is picking up ever more speed.

We want to help future-proofing the protection of our financial interests. Now to the actual results, honorable members. Purely for the year 2025, OLAF recommended recovery of almost 600 million of misused EU funds, preventing 18 million from being unduly spent. Concerning revenues into the EU budget, OLAF helped prevent almost 1 billion euro worth of customs and import VAT. It is important to see how we reach these results and numbers.

It starts with a lot of information and data and frankly a lot of confusion, which is then filtered carefully.

Is OLAF competent? Is there really a problem that we can investigate? Can we protect the Union's budget in this case? I shall also remind the audience that OLAF works on the principle of subsidiarity. In 2025 OLAF received a record number of pieces of information relating to potential fraud and wrongdoing.

Nearly 5,000 individual bits of information and allegation. This is an increase, which is partly due to advances in artificial intelligence making it easier to send multiple documents. More information is of course welcome. It also means that there is more for our colleagues in the selection unit to assess. We are addressing that challenge, for example by developing our own AI tools to help process information faster.

In particular last year, our dedicated AI team developed tools that help detect fraud-related communications in large datasets, anonymize reports and manage case documents, sharpening our fight against fraud and corruption.

The investigative work follows. In 2025, we closed 209 investigations, opened 254 new ones, and issued a total of 260 recommendations to relevant national and EU authorities. At the end of 2026, in OLAF 2025, there were 414 ongoing investigations.

These numbers do not even include dozens of cases of customs coordination and cooperation. While they are not counted as investigations, they are essential for OLAF work. Then we have the final investigation reports. We issued 141 financial recommendations, 46 administrative recommendations, 18 disciplinary and 11 judicial recommendations. Looking at the bigger picture and not just last year, in the last decade OLAF work has returned 6.8 billion to the EU budget.

To make this less abstract, by our calculation this is the equivalent of an extra one and a half years worth of Erasmus funding we protected. This number is of course a moving target. Recoveries from more recent years are still coming in and will further boost our numbers.

In 2023, several investigative trends emerged. On the expenditure side, we encountered numerous instances of inflated invoices, manipulation of procurement procedures and conflict of interest. We also investigated 18 cases linked to the RRF. And when it comes to revenue investigations, we saw increasing incidents of trade diversion, evasion of customs duties and VAT. Tobacco and e-cigarette smuggling remained a key area of activity, helping seize over 427 million illicit cigarettes worldwide, with 219 million cigarettes confiscated at the EU's external borders.

Our internal investigations across EU institutions saw us conducting a series of high-profile investigations.

There was a noted rise in ethics-related investigations. We also investigated instances of undeclared external activities, conflicts of interest, harassment, and misuse of missions budget. Another important area of OLAF and for OLAF in 2025 was continuing to help enforce EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus.

Our analysis of trade flows and supply chains led to the detection of several schemes rerouting restricted goods through intermediary countries. One case saw us working with Polish authorities to prevent the illicit export of 766 vehicles from the EU to Russia.

We also helped bolster the Ukrainian fight against fraud and corruption by providing specialized training for Ukrainian customs and law enforcement authorities. Honorable members, as I mentioned earlier, a new addition to our annual report is our recommendation on how to improve the protection of the budget. These range from encouraging each Member State to adopt a national anti-fraud strategy to assuring strong anti-fraud clauses are written into EU trade agreements with third countries. Our recommendation we made was to allow OLAF full access to EU customs data hub. We thank the Parliament for the support in achieving this.

Olaf will continue to make recommendations of this kind in future reports, as we will always look for ways to offer the greatest protection of the EU's financial interests. We will of course not manage this all on our own. It's often said that Olaf works best when it works with others, and the welcome trend in 2025 was increasing cooperation with our partners across the EU and around the world.

There are many examples in the report. From coordinating across coordinating actions against the illicit import of e-bikes to assisting in multinational efforts against the import of counterfeit and potentially dangerous medicines. When anti-fraud partners work together, we create a pack that can inflict great damage to criminal organizations while protecting the EU financial interests and citizens.

That is the impact that cooperation can bring. That is why it is important. One area that I'm very pleased to see increase in 2025 is our cooperation with the European Public Prosecutor's Office. As you might imagine, I'm very keen to see this continue and as you might further imagine, given my previous role, I have a few ideas on how to achieve that. We are fully engaged in the discussions on the review of the anti-fraud architecture.

I look forward to working with the CONT committee on its own initiative report on the matter as well as on the future legislative proposals.

Honorable members, thank you for taking the time to listen to me today. The report shows the impact that OLAF has. We want to make sure that EU funds go where they can go good, help protect citizens from potentially dangerous goods and claws back billions of misused funds from the EU budget. This means schools can be built, single market protected and defenses strengthened. And please bear in mind that we have done this against a backdrop of reduction in our staff.

In the last 15 years, OLAF has lost 110 statutory staff. Despite these losses, our office works hard to deliver excellent results. Honorable members, as I know, I recently, as you know, I recently took up the role of the Director General in OLAF. I can already say that it is an absolute privilege to lead an office that is so dedicated, committed, and knowledgeable. And I'm looking forward to any questions.

Thank you.

56:24 - 56:38

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much for that very interesting introduction, Mr. Clement.

Jag ger nu ordet till den ständiga rapportören för OLAF, Herr Eriksson. Varsågod Dick, du har ordet i fem minuter.

56:38 - 01:00:28

Dick ERIKSSON

Tack så mycket ordförande. Det är vi som ska tacka generaldirektör Clement och hela staben på OLAF för ett omfattande och gott arbete och jag kan rekommendera mina kollegor att titta i den här årsrapporten som är väldigt utförlig och nyttig med mycket information.

Det sker tydliga framsteg på flera områden då, särskilt när det gäller den förbättrade handläggningstiden för avslutade utredningar och den mer detaljerade rapporteringen som ordföranden också nämnde här om finansiella rekommendationer och annat. Samtidigt pekar rapporten också på en bedrägerimiljö som blir alltmer svårhanterad, alltmer digital och omfattar gränsöverskridande data. Detta särskilt i ärenden som rör tull, moms, e-handel och sanktioner.

Jag skulle vilja ställa tre frågor till OLAF om privata källor, tullbedrägerier och AI när det gäller att förbättra arbetet och upptäcka mera brister och hur en effektiv uppföljning kan ske. Den första frågan är då: OLAF noterar en betydande ökning av information från privata källor, särskilt i frågor som rör just tull, moms, e-handel och också tidiga signaler om jordbruksstöd, försvarsupphandlingar och sanktionsöverträdelser.

Hur avser OLAF att omvandla detta växande flöde av information från privata källor till ett strukturerat system för tidig varning för kommissionen och medlemsstaterna, samtidigt som källskydd och kvalitetskontroll säkerställs? Fråga två är att rapporten visar att tullbedrägerier i allt högre grad rör sig mot fragmenterade flygexpressförsändelser, oklara lagerarrangemang och onlineförsäljning som döljer varornas verkliga ursprung.

Anser OLAF att de nuvarande arrangemangen för tillgång till data från logistikoperatörer, e-handelsplattformar och lageroperatörer är tillräckliga för att upptäcka dessa bedrägerier i realtid, eller bör kommande tull-, moms- och bedrägeribekämpningsreformer införa tydligare skyldigheter att dela operativa data med OLAF och nationella myndigheter? Fråga tre. OLAF hänvisar till införandet av AI-verktyg under 2025 för att upptäcka bedrägerirelaterad kommunikation i stora datamängder, anonymiserade rapporter och ärendehandlingar.

Vilka interna skyddsmekanismer, granskningsspår och system för mänsklig kontroll finns på plats för att säkerställa att AI-stött utredningsarbete förblir tillförlitligt, förenligt med grundläggande rättigheter och användbart för uppföljande myndigheter? Och kan OLAF när det gäller AI redan identifiera mätbara vinster i upptäcktskapacitet när det gäller AI? Tack så mycket.

01:00:28 - 01:00:51

Jonas Sjöstedt

Stort tack för det, Dick Eriksson. And I turn to OLAF if you would like to comment upon the question posed by Mr. Eriksson, if you Mr. Clement or anyone else from your team would like to comment upon the questions being asked. Thank you.

01:00:51 - 01:05:33

Bernhard Clement

Mr. Eriksson, thank you very much for the questions, they are very topical. As for the increase of reports and allegations, incoming information, this is not a problem only of this office, it's a general problem. The not only the number of incoming reports and allegations is growing, it's also the complexity of reports and allegations.

And we believe that this is because of the increased use of AI tools and AI-generated documents. How we deal with that increase? Indeed, there's a whole unit dealing with with selection and verification of the allegations. And I'm also sure you know that the unit is is extremely burdened with their tasks.

I took measures to support that unit by staff members, by reviewing their procedures and looking into particularities of how their opinions are drafted. This is definitely not enough. As for using AI, we have to be very careful and we are very prudent in OLAF as for protection of our very, very sensitive data. That's why we operate all internally developed AI solutions in a closed system. We also dramatically suppressed its creativity.

So AI is currently used for anonymizing of documents, to summarizing of documents, this is also of use of that particular unit.

The AI is currently developed and implemented in monitoring the container movement and finding particular patterns. We definitely want to proceed with the technology and I'm dedicated to make investments into software and technology which would help dealing with this trend.

And again, I'm afraid that this is a common task for all public institutions, maybe not only public, to place technology not against, but to deal with another technology, AI to AI. This is the only way forward. As for the VAT, we welcome that OLAF has been given access to the VAT data related, and I underline, to customs matters.

The question was whether we see enough of the data flows to OLAF, and I shall extend it to the whole anti-fraud architecture. As for the data exchange in terms of the entire anti-fraud architecture, I do not see it as adequate. There are both legal and technical constraints in that.

But if we shall speak just about OLAF, we would definitely welcome access to so-called pre-arrival data so that we could be we would be able to stop illicit trade, waste trafficking before it reaches the EU borders or at the at the borders at the latest. Automated exchange in terms of hit-no-hit is still being developed. Our experts are working on that, but I'm afraid that also that could have been tackled many years ago.

Automated exchange, finding patterns in databases, maybe on the hit-no-hit system across all the members of the anti-fraud architecture is crucial to be able to proceed with protection of the budget. Thank you, that's all for the moment. I'm ready to answer more questions if necessary or clarify.

01:05:33 - 01:06:04

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much, Mr. Clement. Mr. Eriksson, are you happy with the answers? Do you have any follow-ups? Mr. Eriksson is happy, then everyone is happy. Thank you so much.

I now open the exchange of views with all the colleagues. Each political group will have three minutes for questions, and if time allows, a catch-the-eye slot, and I think time will allow for further questions. And first on the list is of course the EPP group, and it's represented by Mr. Avtias, please.

01:06:04 - 01:09:01

Georgios Aftias

Dear colleagues, I will talk to Greek. Νομίζω ότι ο κύριος Clement με απόλυτο και σαφή τρόπο κατέγραψε σήμερα τα πολύ σημαντικά αποτελέσματα της OLAF. Κράτησα τρία σημεία, θα είμαι πάρα πολύ σύντομος. Το πρώτο είναι ότι εντοπίστηκαν 18 περιπτώσεις για το Ταμείο Ανάκαμψης, αν μπορούσε να είναι πιο περιεκτικός σε αυτό. Το δεύτερο, αυτή τη στιγμή όπου υπάρχουν Κινέζοι σε λιμάνια είναι άβατο.

Προσέξτε. Έχουν δημιουργήσει ηλεκτρονικό σύστημα ελέγχου των δικών τους προϊόντων και τα κράτη μέλη δεν μπορούν να μπουν και να ελέγξουν τι μπαίνει.

Και τα ίδια τα κράτη δεν έχουν καμία δυνατότητα έξω από τα λιμάνια να σταματούν αυτοκίνητα ή φορτηγά ή νταλίκες και να λένε τι έχετε μέσα. Υπάρχουν πάρα πολλά παραδείγματα και αυτός ο ηλεκτρονικός τρόπος ελέγχου των λιμανιών, κρατήστε το αυτό, απαγορεύει ακόμη και σε πολεμικά πλοία των κρατών μελών να ζητήσουν και νερό. Έχει συμβεί με πολεμικό πλοίο χώρας μέλους της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. Το τρίτο στοιχείο είναι ότι με φώναξαν οι μεταποιητές αγρότες στην Ελλάδα, στην Ημαθία και μου έδειξαν μία κομπόστα από την Κίνα.

Αυτή η κομπόστα έκανε ένα ευρώ. Δηλαδή το περιεχόμενο, το γυαλί που ήταν το βάζο και ούτω καθεξής, όλο αυτό ένα ευρώ. Η κομπόστα στοίχιζε μόνο στην Ελλάδα δυόμισι ευρώ. Δεν είναι μόνο τα μικροδέματα. Ζήτησα από την Ευρώπη να παρέμβει και έβαλε μόλις τρία ευρώ.

Αν δεν βάλουμε 9,99 σε όλα, δεν θα σταματήσει η Κίνα να στέλνει αυτού του είδους τα προϊόντα.

Και τέλος, είχα ζητήσει να δώσουμε ό,τι ζητήσει η OLAF για να κάνει καλά τη δουλειά της. Υπαλλήλους, μηχανήματα, χρηματοδότηση, τα πάντα. Διότι είπε ο κύριος Clement, έχουμε χάσει 112 υπαλλήλους. Συρρικνώνεται η υπηρεσία. Έχουμε ιερή υποχρέωση να στηρίξουμε την OLAF για να μπορεί να εισπράττει περισσότερα χρήματα, να διεκδικεί περισσότερα χρήματα για την Ευρώπη.

Κύριε Clement, σας ευχαριστώ θερμά.

01:09:01 - 01:09:16

Jonas Sjöstedt

Ευχαριστώ, Mr. Avtias, for your questions. I now pass the floor to the to Mr. Clement and his team for answers of these questions on various kinds.

01:09:16 - 01:13:16

Bernhard Clement

Thank you also for these questions. As for the RRF, OLAF has been active in protecting the RRF from possible fraud and irregularities before already before its disbursement began, for example, by providing support and advice to national authorities, putting special accent of early detection of irregularities and investigating them.

And indeed in 2025 there were 18 RRF cases. The trend shows an increasing number of RRF cases open. I know that also the European Public Prosecutor's Office shows that trend and it's not a secret that these cases are particularly difficult to investigate if the baselines and target values were not identified clearly for the and I can I think afford to note that it's particularly difficult for criminal investigators to identify the intent.

But as for the numbers, we shall definitely speak about the capacity of the office as you as you rightly raised it, because I expected the question why is there only 18 RRF cases or whether there should be more of them. There could be more of them if the capacity of the office would be larger. There's about 124 investigators in OLAF including maternity leaves and other other obstacles preventing them from working.

Then if you include all the ongoing investigations, support cases to EPPO, coordination cases, mutual assistance cases, cases of various types of both expenditure and revenue, then you will be able to calculate the right workload and distribution also of focus of the office. We are working closely with customs authorities to find solutions on access to data problems.

We also welcome that Olaf will have access to the data hub of the EU Customs Authority, and we will assist the authority with our knowledge and expertise, and also I hope that we will be able to share and exchange data effectively so that particular patterns could be found and dealt with, either in terms of administrative or criminal investigations by EPPO or at the best both at the same time.

And as for the farmers' cases going on in Greece, cases we investigate and ongoing cases are very difficult to comment. And I think most of the investigations were run by the European Public Prosecutor's Office, most of the famous ones or publicly known ones. I'm afraid that indeed expenditure in agriculture and the budget for agriculture expenditure is about 30% of the expenditure, so no surprise that there are many cases in this result. But as for particularities, I'm not ready to comment.

01:13:16 - 01:13:19

Redner 18

Excuse me for that.

01:13:19 - 01:15:44

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much for your reply, Mr. Clement. And now it's time to pass on the word to other groups. And we have no one from the Socialists nor from the Patriots present. Dick, if you want to make a question on behalf of the ECR, you are more than welcome. But you're happy with the introduction.

Then I have a question myself, representing the Left group.

You mentioned that you were working with the breach of sanctions against Russia. And I mean, we have two parts of the sanctions regime. One is for export from the EU and from other countries to Russia. And we know that there is a steady flow of goods going through, for example, the Caucasus or through Central Asia. And we have a real problem with the breach of sanctions.

And I wonder if you could elaborate a bit on that and how is it possible to cooperate with the relevant authorities in the in the countries that facilitate this where this where this breach of sanction is facilitated? And do you see any countries where we need to improve the cooperation with relevant authorities to be more effective in in combating this breach of sanctions?

When it comes to the other part of the sanctions regime from that has to do with exports from Russia, of course Russia is heavily dependent on the export of fossil fuels, especially crude oil. And we know that there is a an enormous amount of oil being exported in in breach of the sanctions regime. And it's a it's an ongoing work with the sanction packages from the Council and from the Member States to try to to cover these loopholes, but it's it's also an area where the Russians always find new ways to circumvent the sanctions regime.

And you working with this on a daily basis and see the practicalities of it, do you have any suggestions? Do you have anything else that you think we could do to prevent this export of crude oil from Russia that is actually financing this brutal war of aggression against Ukraine? Those are my questions. Thank you.

01:15:44 - 01:19:12

Bernhard Clement

Yes, thank you also for this question. OLAF has been and is committed to ensuring that sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus are effectively enforced. To achieve this, OLAF provides operational intelligence and coordinates actions with the Member States to detect and prevent sanctions evasion. We cooperate with the customs very closely. And in times of hybrid threats, customs is in the front line and the law enforcement, not the military.

OLAF utilizes its expertise in data analysis to identify potentially fraudulent behavior, including unusual trade patterns.

I already spoke about using the AI model, which we are currently implementing, testing in the first phase, to help us with that. We also monitor price anomalies and irregular conduct. OLAF relays critical information to national authorities. We identify and basically report to national authorities, so strengthening national customs authorities and the easy exchange of information with OLAF is crucial.

We try to connect the dots and facilitate effective enforcement, which again has to come from the national authorities. A recent example of OLAF's success in the area of coordination of a complex cross-border investigation into the suspected circumvention of EU sanctions is involving the export of the over 760 transport vehicles which I already mentioned.

We are also working closely with third countries and you asked me about difficulties in this type of cooperation. I shall not hide that it is a very very sensitive matter and very sensitive relations because in order to achieve our goals we have to and shall cooperate also with and mainly again with customs authorities of countries with which the EU is not let's say in the best terms.

I think that even going to details would be too sensitive. Objective of this year is that any breach of sanctions would be potentially subject to investigation, and OLAF always assists national authorities to check those. We also shall appeal to national authorities to report on possible breaches of sanctions and to call for OLAF's assistance. This is also the way forward.

I believe that I and I hope I answered the questions.

01:19:12 - 01:19:22

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you for that, Mr. Itten. I now open the floor for any other member who would like to pose a question. Mr. Szydłowski, please.

01:19:22 - 01:21:24

Tomáš Zdechovský

Yes, there is so many members also and they have it so many questions also I am very privileged that I can raise my question. And I hope so Mr. Mr. Director General that you will have it answer for me.

I will not ask you for the secret. But I will ask you for very important things what are linked with new anti-fraud architecture. Also the review of the EU anti-fraud architecture is the key opportunity to strengthen the protection of the EU financial interest. From the OLAF's perspective, what are the most important gaps that still needed to be addressed? This is my first question.

Second question is much more worser. Your report shows that customs investigation had the biggest financial impact in 2023, with almost 1 billion euro protected from the EU budget. Which types of the customs fraud are today the biggest threats to the EU and what support does OLAF needs to fight them more effectively?

And third question is the last but very important also. When we talk about anti-fraud architecture and customs, how do you see the future cooperation between OLAF and European customs authorities in tackling increasing complex customs fraud schemes?

Thank you very much for your response.

01:21:24 - 01:21:31

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you for your questions, Mr. Stěhovský, and I give the floor to OLAF for response. Thank you.

01:21:31 - 01:27:24

Bernhard Clement

Thank you, thank you Mr. Stěhovský for the questions. I think there could even be one answer by one word to all of them. That would be technology. And then I would elaborate on that. But what are the most important gaps, what are the gaps in the anti-fraud architecture?

And again, I shall not hide myself from this committee.

I think that I commented on this quite loudly over the selection procedure where I dared to say that I did not believe that there was any anti-fraud architecture. Indeed, this is a term we use for institutions which have been growing for many years individually. But we are trying very, very hard to cooperate and to find the solution.

The main, there are obstacles which are legal, there are obstacles which are technical. Even if I believe that we could easily cooperate even on the basis of the current legislation, this did not prove itself very practical. The review of both EPPO and OLAF regulation will most probably be happening, its evaluations are being done.

This is a good opportunity, also with the possible revision of other regulations, to build a well-functioning interlinked architecture based on even if asymmetric model of exchange of information. But we have to finally break the legal obstacles to simple exchange of information and especially the differences in understanding importance of tasks of administrative and criminal investigators and their very important role.

I'm very sure that only the holistic approach is the right one to tackle and to prevent the financial interests of the EU effectively. And we have good examples from particular member states, from particular countries, in which the authorities of mixed nature, in which exchange of data, information, evidence between administrative and let's say prosecution authorities are flowing easily without any problems. We shall achieve that.

And we shall bear in mind the importance of roles of all. As for the, so, well, in particular, I think that we have discussed that already in terms of automated hit-no-hit system, for example, between the EPPO and OLAF, in terms of most preferably databases which would allow for cross-checks across the anti-fraud architecture, etc.

Technical and legal, the legal ones especially ownership of information by the member states in terms of procedures for for Europol and Eurojust. I can see that as an obstacle. It is an option as well as stopping Olaf from from proceedings in its investigations.

But if such options are used too often, we do not achieve our goals. Well, moreover, as for the customs, customs trends, there are still, still big frauds in customs undervaluation of goods, there's customs circumvention of imports of particular goods, and the e-commerce complicates that of, of course, a lot because the goods end up on the electronic, on the internet platforms.

And this is also a very well-known trend, as well as the abuse of the 42 customs transit regime and other regimes. I think also very well described by our partners. The way forward, joining forces, definitely OLAF identifying fraudulent patterns in suspicious movements of containers and behavior of particular operators and sharing the information with the EPPO and with Europol, which we already do, by the way. We sent Europol a lot of data. As for the customs hub, I believe that I've already answered the questions.

We are happy, we welcome access of OLAF to the data hub and we will definitely and we are very interested in cooperation with the customs authority in terms of our investigations and their tasks.

01:27:24 - 01:27:30

Redner 21

This is a must for the office. Thank you very much.

01:27:30 - 01:27:41

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much, Mr. Clement, for these replies to the questions of Mr. Saryusz-Wolski. I now ask, is there any other member? Madame Chabaud, please, go ahead.

01:27:41 - 01:31:48

Virginie Joron

Merci Monsieur le Président. Monsieur le Directeur, merci pour votre présentation, même si je n'étais pas là, j'ai lu le rapport. D'ailleurs, je souligne la qualité de ce rapport qui est un peu mieux étayé, où on voit enfin des exemples. Et je vous remercie parce qu'il est très agréable à lire. On voit que vous avez amélioré ce rapport par rapport à l'année dernière.

Donc moi, j'ai différentes questions. Je ne sais pas combien de temps j'ai de parole, je ne vais pas prendre une heure, vous inquiétez pas. Mais le sujet est intéressant et puis bon, voilà, je profite de ce temps pour aller dans plus loin dans tout ce que vous avez mentionné. Je vais commencer par la page 27. Vous mentionnez une irrégularité que vous avez constatée par une attribution de marché d'offre publique.

C'est 40 millions d'euros. Si a priori je lis bien entre les lignes ça serait l'agence eu-LISA. C'est important parce qu'on sait très bien qu'il y a des difficultés d'appréhension de la lecture de cette réglementation. Vous quand vous constatez ce type d'irrégularité, vous l'appréhendez sous quel angle ? Est-ce que c'est de la fraude manifeste ou est-ce que ça peut être de l'erreur manifeste ?

Parce qu'on voit bien que d'un règlement à l'autre, d'une phrase, de même peut-être des partenaires assez enfin des contractuels qui devraient répondre à ces appels d'offres ne répondent pas.

Donc comment vous avez appréhendé ce dossier ? Ça m'intéresse parce que c'est finalement un exemple, et je suis sûre qu'il y en aura d'autres, qui a ces difficultés d'appréhension de la mise en œuvre de ces offres publiques d'achat. Deuxième question, d'ailleurs je pense que vous avez été sollicité par un pétitionnaire de Saint-Martin qui a rencontré ces difficultés. Je reviens de cette mission en PETI et c'est vrai que ça a été soulevé. Apparemment il vous aurait saisi, donc à vérifier où vous en êtes parce qu'effectivement même si je sais qu'il n'y a pas eu une volonté aujourd'hui de récupérer des fonds, mais en tout cas il y a une volonté sous-jacente.

Bon voilà, c'est difficile mais en tout cas ils vous ont saisi.

Ils aimeraient savoir, enfin en tout cas c'était une question qui revenait lors de cette mission. Le cas de l'Espagne, je sais que j'ai des collègues qui ont soulevé cette problématique, vous savez, une mauvaise attribution des fonds européens a priori. Ça fait, ça fait couler beaucoup d'encre. Dès la Commission apparemment se retourne vers l'État espagnol, mais quand même il y a, et c'est votre rôle, si je comprends bien dans, dans, dans vos activités, c'est de voir que les fonds sont bien attribués pour le bon, la bonne définition du fonds. Et le cas de l'Espagne est revenu plusieurs fois.

Où ça en est ? Est-ce que vous allez vous saisir de ce dossier ? Autre point, votre rapport envoie à la fin avec le Parquet européen, il y a des améliorations, mais vous dites qu'il y a encore du travail à faire.

Qu'est-ce que qu'est-ce qu'on peut voilà qu'on peut pousser à comment à fluidifier les rapports ? Autre autre point, la France par rapport à vos recommandations judiciaires, c'est pas grand-chose, on voit que c'est que 20 %. Est-ce que pourquoi là aussi pourquoi pourquoi ça va pas plus loin ? Et pour finir oui donc alors le volet sur les investigations du staff effectivement c'est assez c'est assez effrayant de voir qu'il y a autant de recommandations. La question c'est est-ce qu'il y a un suivi après vos recommandations ?

Parce que c'est bien vous faites un travail d'enquête, on voit que ça prend du temps, on voit que que s'il y a des dossiers et vous l'avez bien mis ça peut mettre en péril la notoriété du Parlement même de la Commission.

On voit que la Commission est beaucoup impliquée dans vos investigations. Après les recommandations, il se passe quoi en fait ? Voilà, c'est c'est ça, comment est-ce que ça revient l'année prochaine toujours avec les mêmes recommandations ou est-ce que est-ce que ça va plus loin ? Est-ce que vous faites des statistiques par rapport à vos recommandations pour après, est-ce que juste des mesures disciplinaires ? Est-ce que là par exemple sur le cas des 40 millions d'euros de l'agence eu-LISA, c'est quand même 40 millions d'euros, vous avez estimé qu'il y a 7 millions 5 d'euros qui devraient être réattribués ?

Est-ce que là aussi vous vous mettez une alerte rouge et vous suivez le dossier jusqu'au bout ? Voilà, je vous remercie beaucoup.

01:31:48 - 01:31:55

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much for these questions. I'd like to give the floor to OLAF for replies.

01:31:55 - 01:38:46

Bernhard Clement

Well, thank you also for these questions. However, I believe that especially after the known jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, you do not really expect I would comment on particular cases, especially if the investigations are not fully in hands in OLAF that much as for particularities. If you recognized some of the cases in our general descriptions, that may be your good assumption, but I shall stop commenting on particular cases right now.

Well, as for particular countries, again, OLAF investigates projects and cases, not entire Member States. We protect the EU money, investigate, for example, RRF funding with the same thorough approach as it does all other forms of EU funding, that's probably the problem you were trying to underline in Spain.

As outlined in the report we are discussing today, we have shared our experience of working with a performance-based instrument. We make some suggestions, for example about having even more tightly defined milestones and less frequent changes to milestones along the way, which I think also happened in that country.

I fully understand the need for simplification and pace. At the same time, EU funds need to remain accountable. That's why we also ask and support the idea of more broader definition of irregularity in the new MFF. Because of quite because of some misbehavior fell off the previous definition, and that was the case of public procurement. Some cases could not be investigated thoroughly.

So I hope that we will avoid this mistake in future. Oh yes, and the the the other part of the question was what's happening after the recommendations. This is this is a point of focus of OLAF and for now over the let's say last year and also in the immediate future and I'm very dedicated to that.

The so-called monitoring forum was established on the level of the Commission, in which the relevant DGs contribute with reasons why it was not or why it even was possible to follow up OLAF's recommendations. This is a lengthy, sometimes process with a lot of usually administrative legal obstacles, appeals, also factual obstacles to recovery. We usually mention bankruptcies, disappearance of the subjects, etc., etc.

However, there's a lot of legal provisions which the change of which would definitely facilitate that process. The fragmentation is something I would like to underline. There are various legal obstacles for the implementing DGs which they have to overcome or which is a precondition for them to recovery. And these obstacles differ.

I would like to also ask this committee and the European Parliament for supporting, if not unification, then harmonization of the approach. Because unless we will have a robust follow-up process, it is very frustrating to see the effort we put in our investigations if the subsequent follow-up is not adequate. We will proceed and we will also report the more granular numbers for the purposes of the PIF report of this year, and we will come with details as for the follow-up, as for the success of our recommendation, and as for the obstacles, as for particular numbers following both OLAF recommendations and EPPO notifications.

You will see those numbers soon.

Oui, we still plead for quicker administrative procedures while still respecting procedural rights and guarantees. I believe again then the approach in this is timely receiving information, timely for OLAF, in order to be able to ask for the preventive measures, precautionary measures, and then in subsequent actions by multiple bodies, including the European Public Prosecutor's Office, national authorities, and national administrative authorities and also the law enforcement.

We are very dedicated and open to our partners. We are ready for a constructive dialogue and to proceed as fast as possible. Thank you.

01:38:46 - 01:41:36

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much for these answers, Mr. Clement, and that also concludes this debate that I think been very interesting. I will now pass to the following part of this slot on the OLAF, which is focused on the activities of the OLAF Supervisory Committee.

Mr. Clement, you and your team is of course invited to stay with us and to participate to the exchange of views with both the Supervisory Committee and the Controller, considering that their reports are centered on OLAF activities and your contributions will be much appreciated. With that we pass to item number nine on today's agenda. The second annual report presented today is from the OLAF Supervisory Committee. I welcome the two members of the Supervisory Committee present today with us, Mr. Angelo Maria Quaglini and Mr. Dušan Sterle, together with the recently appointed new head of the secretariat who supports both Supervisory Committee's and Controller's functions, Ms. Amira Szonyi. Thanks for being with us today and congratulations to Ms. Szonyi for her new position.

Also with us on this topic is the standing rapporteur on OLAF matters, Mr. De Erikson himself.

The target of the report is again OLAF and your contributions to this exchange will be very much appreciated. There are many matters tackled by the annual report and which are of interest for CONT. I refer to the analysis of the situation of resources in OLAF, both for staff and budget, to your continuous monitoring of the duration of investigations, but also of particular interest this year is the opinion on the evaluation of OLAF regulation.

I am aware that it has been formally adopted in 2026, but the analysis has been carried out in 2025 and of course our interest is related to the incoming revision of the OLAF regulation which is expected to be launched soon. I do not want to take much more time of your presentation, so please, Mr. Quaglini, you have the floor for eight minutes.

Mr. Eriksson will then have the floor for his remarks and questions for four minutes, and this will open up the exchange with questions and comments from the other members present today. Also for this item, I invite the members who would like to have the floor for questions to signal their wish to speak to the secretariat so we can put you on the list. Thank you, Mr. Quaglini. Yeah, with that I give the floor to Mr. Quaglini, please.

01:41:36 - 01:53:39

Angelo Maria Quaglini

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Honorable members of this committee, I'm Angelo Quaglini and I'm here with my fellow colleague, Mr. Dušan Sterle.

We are here on behalf of the chair of the Supervisory Committee, Ms. Marita Salgrave, who to her great regret could not join us today. We would like to express on behalf of the committee our sincere gratitude for this opportunity to present our annual report for 2025 and for the interest that you constantly show on our work. To this end, I've prepared a brief presentation covering the main contents of the annual report. For those who are not familiar with our structure, we are a committee which is composed of five external experts appointed by common agreement of the European Parliament, the Council, and the European Commission for a five-year term. We discharge our functions independently, without instruction neither from our governments nor from any other European institutions.

And as foreseen in the legal framework, in 2027 the committee will undergo a full renewal with a staggering system, so with two members scheduled for replacement in April and three members in October. As regard resources, the members of the committee serve the committee alongside their permanent professional responsibilities. Under the legal framework, the committee aims at preserving OLAF's independence.

Our role can be described mainly as threefold. First of all, we are asked to monitor on a regular basis OLAF's investigative function, with particular attention to the duration of investigation and to the respect of procedural guarantees. Secondly, we assist the Director-General in the discharge of his duties and responsibilities.

And finally, we report to the institution, as we are doing today, on the outcome of our activities in a spirit of accountability and transparency. Throughout, in our activities, we are, we continue to be supported by the secretariat of eight staff members, and I would like to take the opportunity to thank them all for their professional engagement and effort. To begin with our monitoring role, in 2025, the committee's activities focused in particular on the trends of investigation lasting more than 12 months, as well as on a more targeted review of the cases exceeding 36 months as the riskiest ones.

We also formally adopted Opinion 1/2025 on harassment cases, which was presented to you last year. Then Opinion 2 on the OLAF's preliminary draft budget for 2026 and, as you were saying, Mr. Chair, Opinion 1/2026 on the evaluation of OLAF regulation, while advancing in the drafting of the opinion on OLAF's reporting duty to the EPPO. In parallel, we also undertook a comprehensive assessment of the level of implementation by OLAF of our recommendations. Against this background, let me start with the duration of investigations, which remains one of the core areas of interest of the committee.

Under the OLAF regulation, whenever an investigation cannot be closed within 12 months, the Director General of OLAF is required to report to the Supervisory Committee and thereafter every six months on the reasons for the duration, the possible remedial measures and also the expected timeframe for closure. In 2025, the committee received over 484 reports relating to 327 ongoing investigations lasting more than 12 months, of which 12% had exceeded 36 months.

We based our assessment on three main indicators: the continuity of investigations, the investigation planning and operational prioritization, and proportionality and effectiveness. Our analysis indicates that the traceability of the causes of delay, the transparency in case management, and also an effective managerial oversight remain of central importance. In this regard, we also highlighted that the revised, newly revised guidelines on investigation procedure provide a constructive framework, notably by requiring investigators to prepare and update work plans and also by reinforcing the monitoring role of the senior management.

A positive aspect must be underlined. This graph displays that between 2023 and 2025, the number of cases longer than 36 months is consistently decreasing.

And these are welcome developments which reflect the positive measures taken by OLAF, also triggered by our recommendation, the recommendation that we issued in past opinion and in our annual monitoring exercises. Closely linked to the OLAF's operational effectiveness is the question of resources. The committee examined OLAF draft proposal for the budget 2026 and also now 2027. I don't have time now to go into details of the budget figures, but I would like to underline two structural issues in the committee's view, which are the human resources and the ICT capacity, which are very important in our assessment of whether OLAF's proposed budget would provide the office with adequate resources to fulfill its mandate in full independence.

Beyond resources, the committee has also reflected more broadly on the framework, the legal framework governing OLAF's mandate. In opinion 1/2026, we undertook a comprehensive and independent assessment of the application and impact of the OLAF regulation, drawing on our monitoring experience and formulating suggestions with a view to the forthcoming revision.

The opinion which was adopted pursuant to Article 19 of the regulation covers several areas and we have identified a number of legal provisions that in our view would benefit from clarification and strengthening. Just by way of illustration, we propose clarifying better clarifying OLAF's mandate in internal non-PIF related matter in line with the relevant jurisprudence. Moreover, the legal framework could benefit from in our view from introducing an explicit reference to the principle of reasonable duration of investigation together with stronger control mechanisms.

And under the current legal text, there are procedural guarantees which are afforded unevenly among persons concerned under internal or external investigation, whereas in some cases this has specific justification, in other instances it is not motivated. Therefore, it is important to ensure a more even framework for procedural guarantees for persons concerned in both types of investigation, including the right to legal assistance and the right not to self-incriminate.

A final suggestion would be to better align the legal framework governing follow-up to OLAF recommendations with the more advanced practices already in place within OLAF, including, where appropriate, a stronger role of the AFCOS. Let me now turn to another important area of the committee's recent work, which is OLAF's reporting duty towards the EPPO. The committee has consistently regarded the relationship between OLAF and the EPPO and their cooperation as an important condition for the effective exercise of OLAF's mandate. In our draft opinion, based on the analysis of 68 cases, we examined how OLAF implements its reporting duty to the EPPO at different stages of proceedings, either the selection phase or during the investigation.

I cannot enter into details of our findings and recommendations at this stage, also due to time constraints and also due to the fact that the draft opinion has been sent to OLAF for comments prior to its approval. But beyond the adoption of opinion, the committee also attaches particular importance to assessing their practical impact.

And to that end, we have carried out a comprehensive assessment of the implementation by OLAF of the 71 recommendations that we issued as a committee between 2021 and 2024. Overall, the findings are encouraging because the majority of recommendations have been implemented, almost three-quarters of them, notably through the new GIPs, the guidelines on investigation procedures. A limited number of issues remain outstanding, in particular as regards the management of duration, changes in the scope of investigation, and the mutual reporting of cases between OLAF and the EPPO. But this exercise also demonstrates the practical value of the constant technical dialogue with OLAF in order to translate recommendations into practical and operational improvements.

And finally, let me briefly outline the committee's main priorities for the next period. We, in our working plan, we included the finalization of the opinion on the OLAF-EPPO cooperation. We have in the pipeline an opinion on case selection in the fourth quarter of 2026, then the annual monitoring exercise of the duration of investigation, and in 2027 another opinion on follow-up to OLAF recommendation is expected.

Finally, in closing, we would like to express our appreciation to OLAF's leadership, the secretariat and all the other partners across the European anti-fraud architecture for their constructive cooperation and continued engagement. The effective protection of the European Union's financial interests depends on the collective strength, coherence and credibility of the system as a whole. And with this remark, honorable members, I've concluded and I thank you for your attention. And we remain on behalf of the committee fully at your disposal for any question you may have.

And we also confirm our availability to present in more details the two opinions on the evaluation of regulation and on the OLAF's reporting duty once approved in specific session should the committee be interested. Thank you very much.

01:53:39 - 01:53:52

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much, Mr. Caglini, for that introduction. Jag ska nu ge ordet till vår ständige rapportör med ansvar för OLAF, herr Dick Eriksson, varsågod, du har fyra minuter.

01:53:52 - 01:58:14

Dick ERIKSSON

Tack så mycket och tack så mycket för presentationen av övervakningskommitténs årliga verksamhetsrapport för 2023.

Rapporten läggs ju fram i en särskilt viktig tidpunkt då unionens bedrägeribekämpningsarkitektur är föremål för översyn och en revidering av OLAF-förordningen närmar sig. Det ger oss därför inte bara möjlighet att bedöma OLAF-verksamhet under 2025 utan även att överväga om de nuvarande rättsliga operativa ramarna för OLAF och övriga berörda aktörer har tillräckliga verktyg för att effektivt skydda unionens ekonomiska intressen. Rapporten visar på tydliga framsteg, antalet långvariga utredningar fortsätter att minska, men ett betydande antal utredningar pågår fortfarande i mer än 24 månader.

Här väcker rapporten då viktiga frågor om resurser. OLAF:s oberoende är inte enbart en rättslig och operativ fråga, det förutsätter också tillräcklig bemanning, budgetmässig flexibilitet och digitalkapacitet.

Om OLAF förväntas hantera risker kopplade till faciliteten för återhämtning och resiliens, sanktionsbrott, tull- och momsbedrägerier samt allt mer sofistikerade digitala bedrägerier måste resurserna motsvara dessa förväntningar. Artificiell intelligens kan bli ett viktigt verktyg för framtidens bedrägeribekämpning, men detta kräver investeringar av olika slag, både i teknik och kompetens.

Det är en viktig fråga framöver här. Jag välkomnar också övervakningskommitténs arbete kring samarbetet mellan OLAF och Europeiska åklagarmyndigheten. Detta samarbete är av central betydelse för hela bedrägeribekämpningssystemet. Jag skulle vilja ställa fyra frågor. Den första är när det gäller utredningarnas varaktighet.

Utifrån er granskning av ärenden som pågått i längre än 36 månader, hur kan OLAF bättre skilja mellan förseningar som beror på verklig utredningsmässig komplexitet och förseningar som skulle kunna åtgärdas genom starkare resurser eller ledningsinsatser?

Bör den reviderade OLAF-förordningen införa en formell beslutspunkt efter en viss tidsgräns, till exempel 24 månader? För det andra, när det gäller prioriteringar och resurser, anser ni att OLAF framför allt behöver ytterligare personal och IT-resurser eller bör översynen av den här bedrägeribekämpningsarkitekturen också leda till en tydligare ansvarsfördelning mellan OLAF och de övriga aktörerna i systemet?

För det tredje, när det gäller samarbetet mellan OLAF och Europeiska åklagarmyndigheten, utan att föregripa era kommande yttranden, är det huvudsakliga utmaningar som hittills har identifierats främst rättsliga, organisatoriska och metodologiska? För det fjärde, när det gäller uppföljningen av OLAF:s rekommendationer, skulle ni stödja en starkare spårbarhetsmekanism som kopplar varje OLAF-rekommendation till ansvarig myndighet och där det är relevant återkrävs belopp? Skulle en sådan mekanism kunna hjälpa parlamentet att ytterligare utvärdera OLAF:s konkreta resultat?

01:58:12 - 01:58:14

Redner 26

Tack.

01:58:14 - 01:58:23

Jonas Sjöstedt

Stort tack för det, Dick Eriksson. And I pass the floor back to Mr. Cagliani to comment upon the remarks and answer the questions.

01:58:23 - 01:58:27

Redner 27

Please, the floor is yours.

01:58:27 - 02:03:19

Angelo Maria Quaglini

Thank you very much for your comments and remarks and question. I'll try to reply to all of them. Of course, we are asked, we try to carry out every on a yearly basis this analysis of the duration of the investigation with the purpose of assessing whether the trend is going down and what are the main reasons behind those cases which are longer than 12 months in general and in our case 36 months.

What we are target is to analyze whether during the investigation there were unjustified breaks which of course cause the investigation to be longer than its initial expectation. Of course, if OLAF had more resources, probably it would impact also the duration of investigation, but according to the evidence that we collected, the staffing is not the only component of the equation of the duration of investigation. There are also other aspects to be taken into consideration, for instance, the complexity of the case, which is determined by the volume of information, also the language, and also the fact that sometimes the cases are cross-border with multi-jurisdictional implication, and it of course involves longer time in dealing with these issues.

A positive aspect that we underlined in our report is that the number of unjustified breaks is very low. And we consider as unjustified a break which is, we only consider breaks which are longer than three months and we only detected two cases in which the break was unjustified.

So this helps, this brings us to say that probably the duration of investigation is caused maybe by the more by the complexity of the case and also by external factors such as the cooperation with other external authorities or third country parties. Coming to the other interesting question concerning the division of responsibilities and of course the cooperation with the EPPO, as you were mentioning, Mr. Rapporteur, the opinion on the OLAF's duty to report to the EPPO is coming and as I was saying before, we will be more than willing to present it in detail because you will find our findings and conclusions together with recommendations.

Some of them are addressed to the can be addressed to the legislator and this is the right time if if the legislator wants to incorporate them in the revision of the regulation. And some others are more practical and they involve organizational issues such as for instance this IT-node system which could be improved in terms to make it more automatic rather than manual verification.

Also the topic of the follow-up on OLAF recommendations is a key area in both the white paper and also in our working plan because it's how OLAF's recommendations which are not of which are not legally binding how they are implemented and followed up then it is pivotal in determining whether OLAF is effective. And we have decided to add in our working plan a specific opinion on this topic and we hope that next year we can come up with insight findings and maybe recommendations especially in the area of financial recommendations where of course OLAF has to rely on the cooperation with other European or national competent authorities and this is an area where also in several studies and also the special report of the European Court of Auditor there's improvement or cooperation to be there are improvements to be done.

And this is an area where also in several studies and also the special report of the European Court of Auditors, there's improvement or cooperation to be, there are improvements to be done and we hope we can contribute to this debate with our opinion. But we share your view that this is an important area which should be preserved in order to improve the level of effectiveness and efficiency of the system as a whole. Thank you for the questions.

02:03:19 - 02:03:30

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much for these replies. I now open up the floor for any other member who would like to make their remarks or have a question. Mr. Stojowski, please, the floor is yours.

02:03:30 - 02:04:54

Tomáš Zdechovský

Thank you, Chairman. I don't have it any question. I have it only one remarks. Really, I am thanks very much for your for your work, for your overview about situation in OLAF.

And I hope so that the things what you address us and what you present us are something what is it normal and what can be solved also by new Director-General. And I remember here the situation that the committee what is looking on OLAF work was not so happy that we had it here many controversial things. And I remember the time when OLAF was not in very good shape and condition. And I'm very, very happy to hear that the condition of this very important, maybe in future agency, it's improving. And I hope so that with new management you will continue with this very important and very good work.

Also thank you very much and I wish you all best.

02:04:54 - 02:04:58

Redner 28

Would you like to reply?

02:04:58 - 02:05:31

Angelo Maria Quaglini

No, just, I want to confirm that, I mean, since we took office in 2022, we had a very positive cooperation with OLAF Director General, the previous one and the new one, and also with the Deputy Director General in the time she managed the office.

And I'm sure that of course in the distinction of roles and responsibilities and I think this is key for a respective functioning, well functioning. So thank you for the comments.

02:05:31 - 02:05:36

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you, and the last speaker will be Madame Chabaud, s'il vous plaît.

02:05:36 - 02:08:46

Virginie Joron

Merci Monsieur le Président, merci pour votre présentation. On le voit dans ce rapport annuel de 2023, l'OLAF a également fourni des analyses plus détaillées sur les tendances et les modèles.

C'est ce que j'ai dit tout à l'heure, mais je le rappelle parce que c'est vrai que ça nous donne plus d'éléments, notamment sur le nombre d'informations qu'elle a eu cette année. On est presque à 5000. Alors je sais pas si c'est vous qui pouvez répondre ou l'OLAF, mais en tout cas vous l'avez constaté dans votre rapport, 4961 informations. La question c'est, dans ce rapport peut-être il y a un manque, peut-être je l'ai pas vu, c'est tout ce flux de demandes. Déjà la définition d'une information c'est quoi ?

Comment on vous saisit ? C'est un appel téléphonique ? C'est par courrier ? Comment concrètement ça se passe quand on a ce chiffre ?

La deuxième question, c'est le choix parce que sur 4961 informations, il y a 1141 dossiers qui sont ouverts. Donc là aussi, comment comment ça arbitre ? Et peut-être ce qui manque dans ce rapport pour une meilleure visibilité pour nous d'appréhension de la surcharge de travail que vous avez, c'est peut-être quand c'est une saisie automatique de l'OLAF. Est-ce que vous vous saisissez sur certains dossiers tout seul ? Vous dites : "Voilà, là-dessus je vais aller enquêter" ?

Ou est-ce que c'est toujours par des flux externes ? Est-ce que comment... là j'arrive pas à voir dans votre rapport parce que ça nous aidera aussi à comprendre comment vous derrière vous structurez vos procédures parce que j'imagine que c'est pas la même démarche quand vous faites une enquête quand ce sont des investigations internes, que ça soit des agences de l'Union européenne, que ça soit la Commission, le Parlement, que des demandes extérieures.

Ça pour moi c'est important parce que derrière vous l'avez mis, c'est par rapport après la gestion du personnel, j'imagine que c'est pas les mêmes personnes qui font les mêmes choses. Et encore une fois vous le mettez dans dans les enquêtes, on voit une augmentation. On a aussi ça m'a paru aussi important à souligner que les enquêtes sur les dépenses directes ont considérablement augmenté, notamment sur le problème de la complexité en matière de marchés publics et de conflits d'intérêts. Et vous dites bon voilà 2025 huit enquêtes menées à bien par rapport sur le Parlement européen avec trois recommandations et Commission européenne six avec non neuf avec six recommandations. Donc ça pour moi c'est important et par rapport aux demandes extérieures on voit bien que moi je l'ai vu en petit, il y a aujourd'hui une utilisation des citoyens de l'IA.

Est-ce que vous le voyez aussi dans votre ces ces informations qui apparemment ont beaucoup augmenté ?

Et comment vous allez gérer ça ? Je sais aussi que ça fait partie de vos outils demain d'utiliser l'IA, donc c'est en cours d'avancer. Est-ce que là aussi vous avez un une trajectoire bien définie et comment vous allez organiser vos services par rapport à ces nouveaux flux qui vont arriver puisque d'un côté vous allez gérer en interne l'IA pour pour ces demandes et pour faciliter vos ressources, mais à côté de ça il va y avoir aussi de plus de demandes puisque les citoyens vont aussi utiliser l'IA pour faire appel à vos services. Merci.

02:08:46 - 02:08:52

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you for that question. Please Mr. Quaglini, you have the floor for replies.

02:08:52 - 02:12:45

Angelo Maria Quaglini

Thank you. Those are very articulated and complex questions. Let me just clarify that of course we are an oversight body.

We perform, we carry out our activities on certain aspects of OLAF activities, especially the duration of investigation and the respect of procedural guarantees. According to the legal framework, we don't perform an overall review of all OLAF activities, especially including the inflow that they receive from external parties as initial information concerning their investigation. We receive specific reporting flows, such as for example the number of cases every that exceed 12 months, together with other kinds of report, for instance cases that are dismissed or transferred to the EPPO.

But of course, if we decide to start an opinion on specific items in OLAF's activities, we have access to the information and also in line with our working arrangements, also to the OCM system. And with specific regard to the topic that you were mentioning concerning the inflow of information, we have, as I was mentioning before, we have added in our work plan a specific opinion on the selection case, so the stage of OLAF's activities where they decide, depending on the information received, the presence of sufficient suspicions and all the other proportionality elements that they need to take into consideration, whether to open or dismiss a case.

And this could be also for us, and this would give us the chance also to analyze the flow of information and how they manage their, of course, how they structure their procedure in order to assess the credibility and reliability of the information. And I'm sure maybe the Director-General is more in a position to comment on that.

Also concerning the follow-up and on recommendations and the use of artificial intelligence, especially concerning this last question, I think I've already replied on the follow-up of recommendations on another question. But concerning the use of artificial intelligence, in our late in the last two opinions on the draft budget of OLAF, we addressed this issue of ICT capacity, especially the development of ICT artificial intelligence tool. And of course, they are key also in the white paper of the anti-fraud architecture and we assessed in positive terms the idea and the projects that OLAF has in the pipeline in order to further develop the use of artificial intelligence, which could be useful and fruitful in dealing with and in managing and tackling the initial inflow of information.

Of course, what we highlighted in our opinion is that the impact of investments that ICT capacity require investment that should be properly funded by the European Union if they if OLAF if we want to put OLAF in the right position to further develop its activities also in this area.

I hope it replies your questions. Thank you.

02:12:45 - 02:14:28

Jonas Sjöstedt

So, Mr. Cagliani, thank you very much for these answers and remarks and for your presence here today. Very much appreciated. With that I will now pass to the last part of this long slot dedicated to Olaf matters, which is focused on the activities of the Olaf Controller of Procedural Guarantees. This brings us to item number 10 on our agenda.

It is my pleasure to now welcome the OLAF Controller of Procedural Guarantees, Ms. Julia Laffranque. Thanks for being today with us, Ms. Laffranque. As the independent guardian of procedural rights in OLAF investigations, your work is essential for balancing effective anti-fraud action with fundamental rights protection. This is not the last annual report that Ms. Laffranque will present today, but it adds up to an already lengthy and valuable experience earned in your position in the last four years.

There are many matters tackled by the annual report and which are of interest for the budget control committee. Also the controller presented an analysis on the evaluation of OLAF regulation and the results are of course of great interest because, as for the supervisory committee, it could inspire further adjustment at the incoming revision of the OLAF regulation. Also with us on this topic is the standing rapporteur on OLAF, the eternal Dick Eriksson. Again the target of the report is again OLAF and your contributions to this exchange will be very much appreciated, but of course we will start with the introduction of Ms. Lafranq, the floor is yours.

02:14:29 - 02:28:01

Julia Laffranque

Tack så mycket. So, Mr. Sjöstedt, honorable members of the European Parliament, thank you very much for the substantial introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, it is the fourth time for me to be here. It is a great honor and I am very impressed by the quality of our discussions here today.

We have now heard of course about the importance to protect the European Union's financial interest and taxpayers' money. But as you Mr. Chair also well presented, the controller is there to balance also this with the interest of the persons concerned during the OLAF investigations. And at this point I would like to stress already as an introductory remark that whenever there is an enlargement of OLAF's competencies, an attention should also be paid to the fact of the competencies of the controller of procedural guarantees and fundamental rights.

Well, I will not continue with the introduction of the institution because you are all very well aware of the impartiality and independence of the controller and of the main basis for the work of the controller, which is of course the OLAF regulation, but also the implementing provisions that I have adopted in November 2022 and, most recently last summer, also the agreement with the working arrangement with the OLAF and with the former at the time Director General.

But now you have on the screen and you can of course download it and you have already made acquaintance with this about my annual report from 2025. I would like to flag two other very important documents in this respect. And these documents are also my opinion about the evaluation of OLAF regulation. This is very important. It is published this year, but the main work was done last year and I am happy to discuss on this matter of course with you.

And the third important document is my opinion from last year on the revised GIPs, the Guidance of Investigation Procedures of OLAF. And this is something that has been already in the meantime also adopted, the revised GIPs by OLAF.

And this ideas that I have presented in my opinion have been taken also into consideration, which I am very happy about. Let me make six short points in my presentation. The first is the key facts that you are of course very curious about. All together I have had 74 proposals, 74 complaints so far and four proposals for the solution.

Last year there were 19 complaints submitted to the controller. As you know, this can be only presented by the persons concerned in OLAF investigations. And most of them were from internal investigations, but also external and one from coordination activity. So let me move to the second point. And this is about the admissibility of the complaints.

As you know, the controller has a rather strict admissibility requirements, including also a deadline during which the complaint must reach the controller. This is also so in order to guarantee that OLAF during the investigation can still remedy its shortcomings should there be any concerning the procedural guarantees and rights. And therefore you will see that 12 out of these complaints were declared inadmissible, three admissible and four partly admissible.

And what were the grounds for inadmissibility? Outside of the mandate of the controller, for example, if it's a data protection issue, it's obviously another institution, or also manifestly without merits, or as I mentioned concerning the strict admissibility requirement, the time limit that has been already passed. And in some instances also the persons who are not concerned in investigation still try to file a complaint. What is also of your interest is that we have had several repetitive complaints and that also the controller, and I pay your attention to the page number 14 of my annual report, has developed now an administrative practice also aimed at mitigating potential misuse of the complaints mechanism that unfortunately also sometimes occurs.

But of course, the main idea is there to solve the complaints as soon as possible and to propose solutions if need be also for OLAF how to enhance its work. And even if the controller does not find always a breach, it has already developed, if I may say so, a certain case law or guidance also for OLAF, for OLAF investigators, but also for law unit and revisers.

And it is also what I would like to call as a obiter dicta, as something in addition sometimes to the concrete cases that the controller is presenting. And this brings me to the third point, what kind of allegations were made last year. And this occurred both concerning mostly procedural guarantees, but also some rules applicable to Olaf investigations.

And the main examples are of course the core values of procedural guarantees, this question of impartiality, presumption of innocence, privilege against self-incrimination, right to be assisted by a person of choice. And concerning the rules applicable to all of investigations, it is important that it was about digital forensic operations, but also legal professional privilege, OLAF case management system, identification of persons concerned and scope of investigation.

All very important matters. And I would like to also draw your attention to the pages 15 and following of my annual report, because in one of the admissible cases decided, Controller invited OLAF to take an action and to resolve the complaint. And this is, I would say, most of the most important result from last year, where I have happy to announce that OLAF has accepted my proposal. This concerned the right to respect private and family life and also right to good administration. And we all know how important these are if we were to be persons concerned in an investigation and investigators are coming and we would like, of course, them to respect our private and family life.

And this fairness of the investigation was restored thanks to this proposal and thanks to the acceptance of the proposal by OLAF. But I have given also some other instructions so to say to OLAF, right to be informed by persons concerned and this should be constantly afforded every time in investigations by OLAF and both also concerning the right to be assisted by a lawyer concerning internal and external inspections and that this right should be there afforded also in writing.

And interesting point another to mention is the proportionality of digital forensic operations. There I would like to say underline that once it is established that the device is used for work purposes even if it's a private device it can be copied by OLAF irrespective of the extent of the use or the reason for it.

And this is also something that occasionally occurs in the complaints concerning the investigations. Now I would like to mention that I am of course first and above all very thankful for the team that is giving support both to sub-committee and to controller and to all members of it who are also all present here today for the very good work methods that we have developed over the years, but also for Olaf and other stakeholders. As I mentioned, an important milestone was that we finally came to the signature of the working arrangements.

We had of course already non-formal working arrangements very well, but now we have also a written document on working arrangements between the Controller and OLAF. And that as I said, the CHIPS went into force and also the proposals of the Controller were taken into consideration. And I would like to also stress besides these official documents, I am very much putting emphasis on the personal meetings and also on technical meetings. Both we had of course with the acting Director-General at the time last year.

I'm sure we will have also with the current Director-General and of course with review team and legal advice unit and even furthermore with the investigators themselves because it is important that they understand the guidance that the controller is giving. And finally, the relations with other EU institutions. I'm always open to obtain feedback about the role of the controller, to improve also the protection of procedural guarantees and to improve also the visibility. And this is why I will leave you with the last slide. Instead of just having a slide thank you very much for your attention, I will give you the slide concerning the considerations for the future.

And here I see a lot that we were also discussing last time and we had a question about it, about how to enhance citizens' awareness of the controller function. And as I mentioned from the start and I will end with this, if OLAF's tasks are extended beyond the OLAF regulation, whatever OLAF is competent, the controller should also be competent to hear complaints too. And we are all very much looking forward of this anti-fraud system.

Continuous oversight of OLAF's compliance of procedural guarantees and fundamental rights should be of course an inherent part of it. And finally, concerning the regulation, here are on the slide four my most important proposals: to extend the categories of subjects who can file complaints to the controller, to give written information on the rights to the persons concerned as soon as possible, to clear guidance on minimum elements to include it in the summary of the facts, and the summary of facts should not be subjective, and also I would like to stress that it is important also to have a correct scope of the investigation.

This occasionally occurs in the complaints and inform the persons concerned of the closure of the investigation. There are many more aspects that I'm happy to answer your questions about, also the relations between OLAF and EPPO that came to the table also on the complaints last year. Also the question of languages, most of the complaints were addressed in English, but some also in Romanian and we had even in Swedish one complaint last year. As I said, transparency is very important for me. You can find all my documents on the internet, on the site of the controller.

And I would like to last but not least also thank the interpreters here present today for their work.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, honorable members of the Parliament.

02:28:01 - 02:28:36

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much for that introduction, Ms. La Fonk. As we say in Sweden, time passes quickly when you have fun. And now we have some time constraints, so I will change the format a little bit. I will give the floor of course to the permanent responsible rapporteur, Mr. Eriksson, for remarks and questions.

I will then immediately pass to members, see if there are any quick questions, and then I will give the floor to you in the end for replying to all the various questions and remarks that we might have. Having said that, I give the floor to Mr. Eriksson, please.

02:28:36 - 02:29:39

Dick ERIKSSON

Tack så mycket. Det här är ju en vital del av vår möjlighet att utvärdera verksamheten i Europeiska unionen, så det är alltid intressant att ta del av det. Jag har en övergripande fråga att det är ju 19 nya klagomål som kom in 2023 och OLAF öppnade 254 fall av utredning. Det är en ganska låg klagoandel kan man säga.

Och det kan ju bero på olika saker. Det kan ju bero på att OLAF sköter sig absolut perfekt och det är svårt att framföra några klagomål. Men det kan ju också vara så att rätten att klaga är begränsad. Det finns ju tidsramar för när man får lämna in klagomål. Hur ser du på det?

Och ja, det är väl om jag ska vara kort, det är väl där jag funderar lite grann på hur det ser ut, att antalet klagomål är så lågt. Vad kan det bero på?

02:29:39 - 02:29:45

Jonas Sjöstedt

I now ask members if they have other questions. Madame Schong, please.

02:29:45 - 02:30:19

Virginie Joron

Merci parce que ça va dans la continuité de la question de mon collègue parce que effectivement déjà c'est vrai le délai un mois est-ce qu'il n'y a pas aussi un manque d'information de ce droit auprès des enquêtés ? Et je ne sais pas si c'est mis dans votre rapport la moyenne pour vous madame de la comment dire de la mise en œuvre de cette enquête. Je n'arrive pas à voir en combien de temps en fait ça dure vous la gestion d'un des dix-neuf plaintes par exemple. Voilà merci beaucoup.

02:30:19 - 02:30:27

Jonas Sjöstedt

Any other questions from members? That is not being the case so I therefore give back the floor back to you Miss Lafranque please.

02:30:27 - 02:34:31

Julia Laffranque

Thank you very much. Well, one could perhaps quote George Bernard Shaw and say that people are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want. And if they can't find them, they make them.

Maybe this is one of the reasons. But you're absolutely right.

19 complaints last year is not a very considerable size of number seeing the actions that OLAF is taking, although I must say that not in every investigation, as I said, the person concerned is a quite limited term already. And this is also something that I am suggesting in the revision of the OLAF regulation to extend and expand this to other persons as well. This is one of the issues. The other one is the, as also was the question concerning the information, is there enough information about the complaint? Well, now I am happy to say that thanks to the work of the controller, the OLAF has more and more integrated the notice in every decision also that OLAF is doing that there is this possibility to complain to the controller.

And this is very important.

I hope this will continue like this, as I said, also information about at the early stage of the investigation for the possibility to be assisted also by a lawyer.

And finally, the time constraint. The time constraint, of course, for the investigations is at the latest one month after the closure of the investigation. And this is also something that could pose some problems also vis-à-vis with the file moving from OLAF to EPPO, for example, and when the persons don't even know that the investigations actually concerning them are in the meantime closed by OLAF. And this is also something that I am suggesting to improve in the revised version of the regulation. Madame Jauron, merci beaucoup pour votre question.

Effectivement, c'est toujours important de ne pas avoir manque d'information de ce droit qui est essentiel justement pour personnes qui sont concernées par les investigations de OLAF. Donc ce que je voudrais dire aussi pour moi-même, nous chez les contrôleurs, on est très rapides. Nous n'avons que dix jours ouvrables de trouver une solution, est-ce que la requête est recevable ou irrecevable ?

Et après, normalement, c'est une question de délai de quatre au plus six mois pour résoudre le problème et pour proposer une solution. Et ça c'est important parce que justement pour l'efficacité des investigations aussi de l'OLAF, c'est important d'être là assez rapidement aussi pour le contrôleur. Donc j'espère que ça répond à votre question. Et j'espère aussi que dans le futur on aura une augmentation de requêtes si nécessaire. Mais ça ne veut pas dire que c'est peut-être aussi une raison que l'OLAF vraiment a amélioré ses méthodes de travail.

Et c'est aussi, j'espère, grâce à cette très bonne coopération entre le contrôleur et l'OLAF.

02:34:32 - 02:34:34

Redner 31

Merci beaucoup.

02:34:34 - 02:43:02

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much for that, Ms. Lafranque, and I would like to thank you for taking part in this debate in this morning. I'd also like to extend my thanks to Mr. Cagliani and to Mr. Clement. Thanks for being here this morning for this extensive discussion on Olaf's activities, and thank you very much for the work you do. This work you do in the interest of the financial interest of the Union and for the sake of the citizens in the European Union. Thank you so much for that.

With these remarks, I conclude this debate on Olaf. Thank you so much, everyone. We will start with the next point within one minute.

I led the delegation and Mr. Petri Sarvamaa, member of the European Court of Auditors, joined the mission as an observer. The objective of the mission was to assess the functioning of the European Union Agency for Asylum, notably in context of the follow-up of the 2023 discharge procedure, and to exchange views with national authorities and relevant stakeholders on the implementation, control and oversight of EU funds in Malta.

In this context the delegation met with the representatives of the EUAA, Maltese authorities responsible for the management, coordination and audit of EU funds as well as civil society organizations. I would now like to invite the members who participated in the mission to share their impressions from the visit. I first give the floor to the head of delegation Mr. Tomas Zdechovsky to present the main findings and conclusions of the missions, please Tomas.

02:43:02 - 02:45:24

Tomáš Zdechovský

Thank you chairman, dear colleagues I would like to present the main finding of the CONT mission to Malta which took place from 31 March to 2 April 2026.

The mission was led by me and included four members of the European Parliament from the CONT and LIBE committees. We examined the work of the European Union Agency for Asylum and the management of EU funds in Malta. We had open and constructive meetings with Maltese authorities, with EUAA, audit bodies, and civil society organizations. We saw positive progress, especially in the EUAA and in Malta's use of EU funds. However, we also identified some concerns.

Different stakeholders gave us different views on transparency, accountability and the fight against corruption. The civil society organization raised concern about slow court cases, access to information and handling of the high level corruption cases.

At the EUAA, we noted improvements since the 2023 discharge procedure, however more work is needed to strengthen trust inside the organization and to fully implement the corrective measures. Our message is simple. EU taxpayers' money must be protected. This requires transparency, accountability and effective controls. The Committee of Budgetary Control will continue to monitor development in Malta and at the EUAA and we are really prepared to do our missions.

02:45:24 - 02:45:27

Redner 32

Thank you very much.

02:45:27 - 02:46:07

Jonas Sjöstedt

Thank you so much for this report back, Tomas. I now ask if there are any other members who took part in the mission who would like to take the floor. No, that not being the case, we conclude this point. Next point on the agenda is number 12, any other business, and as far as I know, there is nothing on that point. Number 13 is the schedule for next coming meetings.

Next meeting is 24th and 25th of June in Brussels, and after that 13th and 14th of July. And after that is vacation, my friends. That brings us to the point where we finish this meeting. I will thank you all for attention. Coordinators will start shortly.

Thank you.

03:19:10 - 03:20:14

Redner 33

Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to this meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control. I would like to welcome our guests, the members of the European Court of Auditors, and the representatives of the European Commission. Today, we have a very important agenda. We will be discussing the annual report of the European Court of Auditors for the financial year 2022.

This is a key document for our committee, as it provides us with an independent assessment of how the EU budget has been managed. Before we start, I would like to remind you of some technical rules. The meeting is being webstreamed and interpretation is available in several languages. Please use your microphone when you speak and turn it off when you are finished. I would also like to inform you that we have a tight schedule today, so I would ask all speakers to be concise and to respect their speaking time.

Now, I would like to give the floor to the President of the European Court of Auditors for his presentation. Mr. President, you have the floor.