Dorte Schmidt-Brown, the Danish employee of Eurostat,
who blew the whistle on financial irregularities,
does not regret her actions even though she has
paid a very high personal price.
She is now living on the island Fuen in Denmark
on invalidity pension, as a direct consequence of
the hard psychological pressure she suffered from
her then bosses in Eurostat.
Mrs Schmidt-Brown, says in a very rare interview
with Berlingske Tidende, that she does not regret
having exposed the financial irregularities in
the EU's statistical office.
"What has surprised me most is what a long
time it has taken before things have started
moving," she says.
On Thursday (25 September) the affair culminated
with European Commission president Romano Prodi
being questioned on Eurostat by European
Parliament political leaders.
Mrs Schmidt-Brown complained back in 2001 that
the company Eurogramme had won contracts under
false pretences.
After being ignored and transferred to a
department that had no dealings with the company,
she wrote a series of letters to Neil Kinnock,
the Commissioner in charge of administrative
reform, saying she was being victimised at work
for speaking out and that a "cover-up"
was taking place.
In January 2002, Mrs Schmidt-Brown received a
reply from Mr Kinnock saying her claims were
"unfounded".
Only this summer did the European Commission come
clean and admit the huge extent of fraud in it
statistical arm and the 37-year old Dane received
a public apology from Mr Kinnock.
"Better late than never", she says to
Berlingske Tidende.
Mrs Schmidt-Brown still spends most of her time
fighting her case. She has handed over a
complaint to the European
Ombudsman and is also involved in an internal
complaint about not receiving the necessary
support from the system when she needed it.
She hopes the affair will force the system to
react much faster in other cases if employees
point out irregularities.
Press Articles Berlingske Tidende
 POINTS ON THE EU DRAFT
CONSTITUTION FROM THE NATIONAL PLATFORM, ON THE
EVE OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE (IGC) TO
FINALISE IT
THE FORMAL END TO NATIONAL POLITICAL
INDEPENDENCE
Article 1.10.1 says: "The Constitution, and
law adopted by the Union's Institutions in
exercising competences conferred on it, shall
have primacy over the law of the Member
States." Clearly States accepting this
article can no longer regard themselves as
independent sovereign States, comparable to the
other 170 or so states in the world. The primacy
of EU law over national law has never been stated
in an EU Treaty before. This doctrine has been
developed by the EU Court of Justice,but not
accepted, for example, by the German
Constitutional Court.
CZECH REPUBLIC PRESIDENT ON AN EU SUPERSTATE
"This is crossing the Rubicon, after which
there will be no more sovereign states in Europe
with fully-fledged governments and parliaments
which represent legitimate interests of their
citizens, but only one state will remain. Basic
thingswill be decided by a remote
'federal government' in Brussels and, for
example, Czech citizens will be only a tiny
particle whose voice - and influence - will be
almost zero . We are against a European
superstate."
- Czech President Vaclav Klaus, article on the EU
Constitution in Mlada Fronta, 29 September 2003;
Irish Times, 30 September 2003
UNION COMPETENCES AND NATIONAL COMPETENCES ...
THE ECJ WILL DECIDE:
Article 1.12 sets out the areas of EXCLUSIVE EU
legislative competence: monetary policy for the
eurozone, the common commercial policy, the
customs union and common fisheries policy.
Article 1.13 sets out the areas of "SHARED
COMPETENCE" between the EU and Member
States: the internal market; the area of freedom,
security and justice; agriculture and fisheries;
transport; energy; social policy; social
cohesion; environment; consumer protection;
common safety concerns in public health. Article
1.11.2 states: "The Member States shall
exercise their competence to the extent that the
Union has not exercised, or has decided to cease
exercising, its
competence." It is thus the Union, not
national States, that has priority even in these
shared areas. It is not even stated that Union
competences must be "expressly"
conferred, which would limit them somewhat. In
jurisdictional disputes it is the Union, through
the Court of Justice, that will decide the
boundaries of the "shared" policy
areas, that is, whether it is the EU or the
Member States will make the laws. A gesture to
placate concerned "sovereignists" is
Article 1.9.2: "Competences not conferred
upon the Union in the Constitution remain with
the Member States."
"LOYAL" SUPPORT FOR COMMON EU
FOREIGN AND SECURITY POLICY
Article 1.15 states: "Member States shall
actively and unreservedly support the Union's
common foreign and security policy in a spirit of
loyalty and mutual solidarity and shall comply
with the acts adopted by the Union in this
area." There is to be an EU
Minister for Foreign Affairs, distinct from
national Foreign Affairs Ministers, as well
as a permanent EU political President instead of
the six-montly EU Presidencies we have now. This
is further evidence of the EU moving towards
statehood and becoming an international actor in
its own right. A constitutional duty of
"loyalty" to
and "solidarity" with the foreign
policy of such an EU entity, makes a mockery of
pretensions to an independent national foreign
policy. The draft Constitution extends the
principle of "enhanced cooperation,"
introduced in the Treaty of Nice, to security and
military matters.
Excerpts in a mail from
Professor Anthony Coughlan, jcoughln@tcd.ie
.
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