European Commission chief Mr Romano Prodi, facing a parliamentary grilling over alleged fraud at an EU agency, is to dismiss any involvement by his team in the scandal, several commissioners said today.
The commissioners, who declined to be named, said Mr Prodi would also resist demands for any commissioner to quit over the affair, which allegedly involves double accounting, fictitious contracts and slush funds at the Eurostat statistics agency.
Mr Prodi meets European Parliament leaders tomorrow over the scandal at Eurostat, the worst crisis to hit Brussels since the previous Commission quit over nepotism allegations in 1999.
It remains to be seen whether parliament, which is worried that the EU Commission failed to stamp out fraud, will accept Mr Prodi's explanation of the affair. Some deputies have already said the economic affairs commissioner, Spain's Mr Pedro Solbes, should resign as he has responsibility for Eurostat.
The commissioners said they had not seen the reports on the probe which Mr Prodi will hand to parliament later today, but said their remarks reflected views within the EU executive.
The commissioners also told reporters that Mr Prodi would tell parliament the alleged accounting mispractices at the heart of the scandal spilled over into the term of office of his team.
But this was only because of contracts struck by Eurostat with outside firms before 2000, when the team took office.
"These are the tail ends of procedures, remains of contracts signed before 2000," said one commissioner.