Anti-fraud body not eager to cut loose from EU commission

EUObserver reports that leading politicians and civil servants on Monday expressed serious reservations at making EU's anti-fraud body fully independent from the European Commission, an idea floated by its newly reappointed chief Jose Manuel Barroso.

Ten years since its creation, the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf, to use its French acronym) is still fighting some "childhood diseases", its head, Franz Hermann Bruner, told an anniversary conference on Monday (12 October) in Brussels. He admitted that there were still gaps, that the statute of its staff was somewhat unclear, but rejected the idea of cutting the institution completely off from the European Commission.