History
OLAF was created in 1999, after strong pressure from the European Parliament. Its predecessor UCLAF (Unité de coordination de lutte anti-fraude), an anti-fraud unit dependent of the European Commission, had failed to convince in the fight against irregularities within the European Institutions. The creation of OLAF is one result of the debates about allegations of fraud and the conduct of former European Commissioner Édith Cresson which in the end led to the collective resignation of the Santer Commission.
An evaluation of the work of OLAF can be found in the Special Report of the European Court of Auditors of July 2005.
The European Parliament took stock of the first six years of OLAF during a public hearing in July 2005.
The UK House of Lords, in a report published in November 2006, stated: "On the basis of the evidence we have received we emphatically refute claims that OLAF is too close to the Commission or that the Commission seeks to divert and influence OLAF’s investigative activities". The House of Lords concluded: "We are content with the extent of the investigations which OLAF has undertaken."
Read more about this topic: European Anti-fraud Office
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)