The efforts of fighting corruption in the attention of the EU

The European Commissioner for taxation, customs, fraud prevention and audit, Algirdas Semeta, states that the authorities in Brussels are worried about issues related to fraud prevention.

He said that the European authorities asked Minister of Finance Gheorghe Ialomiţianu to ensure a better cooperation between Romanian authorities and the Anti-Fraud Office of the European Union to streamline investigations and improve the fight against fraud.

European Union funds fraud is a quite worrying phenomenon, given the fact that the damage to the general budget of the European communities rises up to over 7 million euros and 1.5 million lei in 2009.

On September 7 2010, the National Anti-corruption Directorate was investigating 247 cases of fraud with European funds.

Until early September 2010, 15 indictments had been issued and 32 defendants had been sent to be prosecuted under such charges.

Algirdas Semeta also met with representatives of the Parliament and is scheduled to meet with the leadership of the Fraud Prevention Division and audit authorities.

The NAFA President, Sorin Blejnar, declared that Algirdas Semeta had advised him to work more closely with the Fraud Prevention Division.

However, he stated that collaboration between the two institutions is "good enough", given that there is a protocol signed between the Financial Guard and this department, which gives full support for dealing with cases of fraud with EU funds.

Additionally, Sorin Blejnar stated that at the meeting with the European Commissioner there was also a debate on restructuring NAFA, stressing that this process would also require staff reduction, but it would only be done after professional testing performed on
various departments of the Agency.

Translated by: Manuela Stancu

MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University