Pflimlin flim flam

07 July 2006

More details are emerging about the Strasbourg European Parliament overcharging scandal, writes Stephen Gardner.  It was revealed in April that the City of Strasbourg, which leases certain buildings in that fair city from a Dutch pension fund and sublets them to the European Parliament, has been overcharging the European taxpayer for 25 years, skimming off a cool EUR 80 million in the process. European deputies up in arms about the rip-off have protested their total surprise at the revelations.  But both MEPs and media have overlooked the fact that at least one person was in an ideal position to have known about the scandal years ago. The parliament's rental contract took effect in 1980 and was signed with the City of Strasbourg represented by mayor Pierre Pflimlin, a former prime minister of France. In the mid-eighties the contract was modified to the further benefit of Strasbourg.  Rent was expressed in ECU and an automatic two-yearly indexation based on consumer prices was agreed by the president of the European Parliament, despite a negative opinion from the institution's budget committee. And who was the parliament president at the time?  None other than Pierre Pflimlin! Pflimlin died in 2000.  When he turned 90 in 1997 consultants' paper the European Voice lauded him as the “man who did so much to improve [Strasbourg's] facilities for MEPs and maintain Strasbourg as the seat of the Parliament.”  Certainly seems an accurate description! A version of this article originally appeared in Private Eye.

 

< Prev		Next >