Brussels drops Cresson a second time
The European Commission yesterday lifted the immunity enjoyed by Edith Cresson as a former commissioner.
(B2 archives) The European Commission wasted no time in acceding to the Belgian court's request to be able to hear Édith Cresson. Seized, officially, on February 2 by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it decided yesterday to lift the immunity of the former commissioner for education and research.
« Une première pour un poste de ce niveau – acknowledges the Commission spokesperson – mais la décision a été facilitée par le fait que l’ancienne commissaire a accepté spontanément de venir témoigner ". Edith Cresson will therefore have to explain herself on the Berthelot file. Her “dentist in Chatellerault”, a town of which she was mayor before becoming European commissioner, benefited from 1995 to 1997, through her benevolence, from a “scientific visitor” contract at the Commission. A contract that quickly appeared to be inconsistent in the eyes of European anti-fraud officials and then independent experts responsible for shedding light on certain issues, troubles of the European Commission.
L’activité du sieur Berthelot semble, en fait, s’être résumée à une dizaine de notes, « certaines très vagues et politiques », sans qu’« aucun rapport final » n’ait été établi à l’issue de sa visite comme il en avait l’obligation. En revanche, les quelques 41 notes de frais qu’il a produites pour se rendre… à Châtellerault, ville dont il est originaire, étaient, elles, bien réelles. Ainsi que ses honoraires. La Commission européenne a d’ailleurs demandé à Berthelot le remboursement de près de 900 000 francs (5,5 millions de francs belges). Sans succès jusqu’ici. Mais il y a plus grave ! Certaines pièces justificatives de son travail auraient été fabriquées a posteriori.
The case of fraud to the Community budget is therefore coupled with the possibility of forgery or use of forgery. Two sufficient reasons for the Brussels examining magistrate specializing in financial files, Jean-Claude Van Espen, to decide to open an investigation "in charge or exoneration", the facts having been committed on Belgian territory. A case to follow all the more closely as this same judge is investigating another case of fraud, where the name of Edith Cresson reappears, those committed by the Agenor/Leonardo technical assistance office in the area of vocational training assistance .
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
(Published in France-Soir, January 2000)