The European Union, through its administrative body, the Commission, and in particular through its delegation in kyiv, has been active in Ukraine since independence. Taken together, the European Union, ie the Commission and the Member States, is the largest contributor to Ukraine in financial terms. The single Commission has so far spent more than 2 billion euros on technical assistance to Ukraine, and almost 500 million euros (494 million) will be provided in 2007-2010 under the new European Neighborhood Policy Instrument (ENPI).

Given the sums contributed by European taxpayers, it is worth paying attention to the way in which this money is spent, not only from the general point of view of the effectiveness of the programs and projects financed, but also with regard to the ethics and procedures.

As for general effectiveness and efficiency – these two words are highly valued and even abused today by all management experts in general and by the European Commission in particular – a specific article and many reports would be worth it. Let’s bring an example and a reference…

The reference is a recent report on the effectiveness of the Tacis programs in Russia: As stated by the European Court of Auditors on April 20, 2006, the use of the TACIS funds provided to Russia between 1991 and 2003, amounting to almost 3 billion euros, was largely ineffective (BRUSSELS, April 20, 2006 (RFE/RL). Similar information about Ukraine was not made public, but one can guess that the situation is no better even if it is not evaluated and officially confirm.

The example is that of an ongoing project called SLD -sustainable local development-, endowed with 5 million euros for services and 13 for associated equipment. Although it has the ambitious goal of supporting sustainable development models in medium-sized territories of Ukraine, in fact it comes down almost to a mere spending of millions to buy equipment in some cities. Currently, the project is implemented exclusively by engineers without any experience in regional development or local administration in an EU member state or even in the CIS. The key and other international experts employed there, should they be present as initially planned, are so conscious of their duties and responsibilities that they spend a significant part of their time playing cards on their computer.

In any case, of the five key experts initially provided for in the contract, only three remain, one of whom has been illegally dismissed and another who has generally only been present for fifteen days during the first year and a half…. Instead of the regional wide development strategy initially planned, the project hardly deals with the delivery of water pipes and advice for energy saving, while nobody knows – and then nobody deals – with regional planning, local finance and cooperation institutional, and nobody cares about the mobilization of financial resources for regional development activities. Who could really question such incredible and obvious shortcomings anyway? The task manager, who controls on behalf of the European Commission, has no idea what a municipality usually deals with and is interested in his only personal interests; he and his superiors in the european commission are not very aware of the issue, and are mainly concerned with the timely spending of money; none of the supervision experts, also paid by the European taxpayer, have ever entered a local self-government body in any EU Member State. Given the utter lack of knowledge and practice of actual work on the part of all the actors involved, a successful and effective spending of money would be purely a fluke and even a miracle.

Developing the theme would be long and tedious. The European taxpayer could be reassured by the thought that “Well, maybe the money is spent ineffectively, even spilled sometimes, but at least it’s all done fairly and honestly, not a single penny is stolen or spent.” penny, regardless of the rules.” , and violations are immediately and severely punished”…. Unfortunately, even in this area, the Commission does not comply with the moral rules that it urges target countries, especially Ukraine, to adopt and observe.

Let’s rely again on concrete cases. At the European Commission delegation in Kyiv, a scandal broke out in 2006, when some officials were suspected of trying to take personal advantage of the contracts they were responsible for managing. Although little publicity was given to the events, it is known that an official from the European delegation in Kiev was arrested and handcuffed while landing in Brussels, and it is also suspected that some other officials, although not officially convicted of offences, were transferred to other posts out of the country. Final sanctions remain unknown.

At the end of the same year, another official of the European Commission, Dominique Charpentier, in charge of controlling important contracts, forced the team leader of one of these contracted projects to hire his domestic partner. The saying had no choice but to accept, although the young woman did not have any relevant experience. After she objected to an unrealistic third raise demanded by Mr. Charpentier, the latter began campaigning against the former, who eventually complained in turn about this situation. Surprisingly, Charpentier acted as if the consortium had owed him a debt; It is true that he was the key evaluator in the tender that this consortium had gone through. At first he was suspended from managing this project on behalf of the delegation, and his partner actually resigned spontaneously. OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) got involved and began to investigate. But the Delegation, forced to react, did not congratulate the person who revealed this misconduct. The black sheep, who dared to reveal the scandal with clear written evidence of it, was accused of violating supposed – and surely not express – rules, by mentioning his rank on his business cards. In turn violating their own written rules and procedures, the delegation got this team leader fired by his employer on this illegal basis. And having confirmed this illegal prohibition to use the official ranks of him, the head of delegation – who illegally grants himself the title of ambassador! -, reinstated Don Dominique Charpentier in his former functions, as if nothing had happened.

To date, this ethically questionable character continues to lead a project in which he had obtained obvious personal interests after having chosen the victorious executor. However, he is still a party to and a key controller of future contracts to be awarded! It is easy to imagine at least some of the conditions for winning the tender in which this official acts on behalf of the Commission….

The unspoken message of this embarrassing example is clear: never expose a scandal when you are in some way dependent on those who are tasked with straightening it out; whoever openly and manifestly violates the rules of ethics will be supported and honored, and whoever dared to suggest that the law be applied will be sullied and removed.

This is how the European Commission delegation and its boss understand morality and ethics… As a temporary conclusion, the helpless European taxpayer cannot be too optimistic: not only is the effective use of their taxes doubtful, but it is still used with a questionable sense of morality and ethics…. ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’.