The European Commission has begun disciplinary action against its former chief accountant, Ms Marta Andreasen, after she went public with allegations of "serious and glaring shortcomings" in the Commission's accounting practices.
She said fraud in the European Commission's €98 billion budget would go undetected and member-states' accounts were left exposed to fraud.
Ms Andreasen was appointed accountant of the Commission in January with a mandate to introduce reform but was moved to another post in May after falling out with her superiors. She told a Tory-sponsored press conference at the House of Commons in London that she had been harassed and threatened with the sack.
Officials said disciplinary action against Mrs Andreasen had been launched two months ago. One of the points that may be at issue is that Mrs Andreasen did not disclose at the time she was recruited that she had been suspended for more than a year from her then job as accountant of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.
The row has laid bare a damaging rift in the most senior management of the Commission and highlights the slow pace of improvements to the Commission's accounting procedures.
