The Budgetary Control Committee The Chair IPOL-COM-CONT D (2020)18667 Mr David Sassoli President European Parliament Brussels Subject: Letter of 12 June 2020, addressed to you by Mr Zbyněk Průša, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Mr Josef Mraz, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of AGROFERT a.s., on the CONT Committee’s fact-finding mission to the Czech Republic on 26-28 February 2020 Dear President, As you are aware, I chaired the Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT) delegation on a fact- finding mission to the Czech Republic on 26-28 February 2020. The objective of the mission was to retrieve more information on how the Czech management and control systems comply with the EU regulatory framework concerning structural funds and agricultural policy and, in particular, the measures taken by the Czech authorities to prevent and remedy conflicts of interests. The fact-finding mission achieved its objective as CONT Members managed to get a better insight into the issue of conflict of interests. They concluded that in the Czech Republic there is currently no clear mechanism for the implementation of Article 61 of the Financial Regulation on how to prevent and address situations which may objectively be perceived as a conflict of interests. On 12 June, Mr Zbyněk Průša, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Mr Josef Mraz, Vice- Chairman of the Board of Directors of AGROFERT a.s., wrote to you a letter of protest in which they alleged that the CONT delegation intervened in an unfinished audit procedure concerning the compliance of the Czech management and control systems with the regulatory framework related to the avoidance of conflicts of interest. They imply that the mission could be perceived as “a political attempt to influence the independence of the officers of the European Commission who are handling this matter”. The signatories of the letter further claim that the conclusions reached by the CONT Committee are “manifestly wrong and unfounded”. In the interest of the CONT Committee and the mission delegation, I must bring to your attention my concern and conclusion that this letter does not provide a realistic depiction of the situation at hand, but aims to protect the interests of a single commercial corporation, and the individual beneficiaries in question. B-1047 Brussels - Tel. +32 2 28 40538 - Fax 0032 2 28 46958 F-67070 Strasbourg - Tel. +33 3 88 1 64066 - Fax 0033 3 88 1 79976 I have mainly two essential points to make, in order to show that the letter of AGROFERT representatives serves an inappropriate purpose and provides false depictions of the European Parliament’s prerogatives. Firstly, I would like to emphasise that the CONT delegation did not intervene with the audit procedure of the European Commission. CONT Members travelled to the Czech Republic to attain more information on the independence of the Czech management and control systems, and how these systems comply with the EU requirement of the Financial Regulation to prevent and remedy conflicts of interest, but not to intervene in a separate audit procedure of another EU institution. Organising a fact-finding mission of that kind is evidently in the remits of the CONT Committee and the purpose of the mission has been properly notified and authorised by the Bureau. The information gathered during the hearing has been properly reflected in the mission report. I can further assure you that during the meetings with the Czech authorities, the CONT delegation did not present any positions to impact the contents of the Commission’s audit procedure. Furthermore, in order to make sure that the CONT mission is completely different from the Commission’s audit procedure, no Commission official participated in the CONT fact-finding mission, contrary to customary practise. The mission report and the joint motion for Resolution on the reopening of the investigation against the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic on the misuse of EU funds and potential conflicts of interest which will be put to the vote this week, both underline that CONT’s work is completely separate from the audit carried out by the Commission. The allegation that the mission to the Czech Republic might have served to unduly influence Commission officials dealing with the audit is therefore ill- founded and rather absurd. Secondly, with regard to the allegations of wrong and unfounded conclusions of the mission report, I would like to stress that CONT sees it as its role to listen to all stakeholders in order to get a broad view on any issue at stake. The mission report summarises all the information gathered and the Members of the Delegation drew their political conclusion on the basis of what they had heard and discussed during the different meetings. When the European Parliament will adopt the joint motion for resolution on the same subject during this week’s plenary session, with wide support from most political groups, it will draw similar conclusions than the mission report of the CONT fact-finding mission. This resolution will show that there is wide democratic support to resolve the issues in the Czech Republic. The letter from AGROFERT Representatives stands in a series of letters from different Czech authorities in the aftermath of the mission, not to speak here of the threads expressed by the Czech Prime Minister before and during the mission which unfortunately do not express a wish for good cooperation to find a solution for the benefit of EU taxpayers. I deemed it important to provide you with these clarifications in order for you to judge on the appropriate reply to the letter. Thank you in advance for your consideration and support. Sincerely yours, Monika Hohlmeier Page 2 of 3 Copy to EP Vice-Presidents: Mairead MCGUINNESS Rainer WIELAND Othmar KARAS Klára DOBREV Nicola BEER Heidi HAUTALA Dimitrios PAPADIMOULIS Pedro SILVA PEREIRA Katarina BARLEY Ewa Bożena KOPACZ Lívia JÁRÓKA Marcel KOLAJA Fabio Massimo CASTALDO Dita CHARANZOVÁ Copy to Chairs of the political groups: Manfred WEBER Iratxe GARCÍA PÉREZ Dacian CIOLOŞ Ska KELLER Philippe LAMBERTS Marco ZANNI Ryszard Antoni LEGUTKO Raffaele FITTO Manon AUBRY Martin SCHIRDEWAN Page 3 of 3 .