Whistleblower to expose Prodi and Kinnock failings
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Daily Telegraph
(14/02/2004)

A whiff of decay hangs over the European Commission. Four and a half years after Romano Prodi took office promising to stamp out fraud and transform Europe into the world's leading economy, his reform drive has all but collapsed.

Europe's most feared whistle-blower, Paul Van Buitenen, is writing a blistering expose of Mr Prodi's fake reforms, claiming that nothing has changed since the collapse of the last commission after corruption claims in 1999.

The Dutch official paints a harsh picture of Neil Kinnock, the reform commissioner, who was hoping to slip away quietly this autumn to enjoy Welsh rugby and the London theatre after years of thankless toil in the European Union "salt mines".

It claims that his reflex has been to sweep scandals under the carpet, shield miscreants, and perpetuate a system in which powerful EU insiders run fiefdoms to suit themselves. "Kinnock's name will be on every single page, and it won't be pretty," said an EU official familiar with the text.

Mr Van Buitenen, a lighting rod for disaffected EU officials, alleges that the disappearance of £3 million into "black accounts" at the EU data office, Eurostat, is just a sample of what goes on throughout the apparatus. He has outlined his book proposal in a letter to the commission, seen by the Telegraph. Under staff rules he must obtain clearance before exposing the inner workings of the EU, where he has returned after working for the Dutch police.

The letter also disclosed his plan to stand as a Euro-MP this June, leading a new anti-fraud party that could win six seats in Holland, where he has been knighted by Queen Beatrix.

Troubles are piling up fast for Mr Prodi. This week, Anna Diamantopoulou, the Greek employment commissioner, became the first of his team to throw in the towel, returning home seven months early to campaign for the socialist Pasok party.

Others with a career in national politics are quietly making their own plans to escape.

Mr Prodi himself has set the tone by spending his time planning a triumphant return to Rome at the head of a centre-Left umbrella movement, earning a rebuke from Britain's Europe minister, Denis MacShane, for neglecting his job.

Yesterday in Rome Mr Prodi was relaunching his Olive Tree coalition, as a prelude to challenging his arch-rival, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, in 2006. Brussels veterans say the Prodi commission is now graduating from lame-duck malaise to rigor mortis. No one can remember a time when the once mighty fonctionnaires were so demoralised, suffering serial defeats as power haemorrhages away on all sides.