OLAF

The EC Commission is in dispute with the two major financial institutions of the Community. Apparently both the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) deny the jurisdiction of the Commission's investigatory agency, OLAF (the European Anti-Fraud Office), to carry out investigations on their premises, since that would breach their independent status. There are many nice legal issues here. OLAF was set up on the basis of Art. 218 (new style) EC, which refers to the Commission consulting with the Council and adopting its rules of procedure to cover the conduct of it and its departments. There can be no doubt that neither Bank is a department of the Commission: although they are not "institutions" of the Community under Art. 7 they are each separately created, by Arts 8 and 9 respectively, and governed by their own statutes which form separate protocols attached to the Treaty. Moreover the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, to which the Commission is claiming to take the dispute, does not in respect of either Bank seem to extend beyond judicial review of their acts, which is not the point at issue.

Doubtless the Commission's Legal Service has done its homework. But it will be interesting to see its legal justification for interfering in the internal administration of two such bodies. In any case, the affair does perhaps spotlight the ambivalent legal position of the many autonomous agencies of the Community.