Akhir 27, 1432 / April 1, 2011, SPA -- A dispute between the European Parliament and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) over a corruption probe into four lawmakers appeared to be settled Friday, despite OLAF investigators being still prevented from accessing the delegates' offices, according to dpa. The two agencies had been at loggerheads for most of the week over the case involving former Romanian deputy premier Adrian Severin, former Austrian interior minister Ernst Strasser, former Slovenian foreign minister Zoran Thaler and Spanish lawmaker Pablo Zalba. Britain's Sunday Times has implicated the four men, saying they accepted 100,000 euros (140,000 dollars) a year from reporters posing as lobbyists to present amendments to draft EU banking regulations. The lawmakers have denied any wrongdoing. OLAF has insisted that it has the right to conduct an administrative investigation into the case, while parliament officials have argued that it falls under the jurisdiction of authorities in the implicated lawmakers' countries. OLAF officials on Friday welcomed a decision by parliament President Jerzy Buzek a day earlier to allow its administrative investigation and hand over a hard disk containing digital data acquired from the Sunday Times. Buzek at the same time, however, again turned down OLAF's request to collect evidence at the lawmakers' offices in his decision. "It does not include the possibility of searching the offices of the members of parliament," a parliament spokesman reiterated Friday. "That is a right that is in the hands of the national authorities. The parliament (will) fully cooperate with them." But OLAF spokesman Pavel Borkovec said his agency would seek "a practical solution" with the parliament and the national authorities over the issue of collecting evidence in the offices. "We did not drop it," another OLAF official, who asked not to be named, said. "It's an option, one of the possible tools or means of the investigation. At the end, we will see if we still need to go there ... It's no longer a legal dispute." He said the agency is now focused on completing its investigation "as quickly as possible." Although the inquiry is not criminal in nature, some OLAF administrative investigations have in the past led to criminal charges being filed. As part of the inquiry, OLAF plans to interview witnesses and the implicated lawmakers. The official declined to comment on whether contacts had been made with the four delegates. He added, however, that he thought it would be "in their own interest to give a statement."
