Transparency and Current Functions
Pledging to continue the fight against fraud and bureaucratic inefficiency on the European level, Van Buitenen founded a party named Europa Transparant, ran with it for the European Parliament in the 2004 elections (in the Netherlands) and won two seats for his party. Van Buitenen joined the Greens-EFA group in the European Parliament as an independent member .
His functions in the European Parliament were
- Member of the Committee on Budgetary Control,
- Substitute for the Committee on Petitions and
- Substitute for the Delegation for relations with Switzerland, Iceland and Norway and to the European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Parliamentary Committee.
- To promote transparency, in 2005 Hans Peter Martin, Paul van Buitenen (Europa Transparant) and Ashley Mote decided to cooperate under the name Platform for Transparency (PfT).
On 29 January 2008 Van Buitenen announced that his party Europe Transparent was to be dissolved and that he personally intended to join the ChristianUnion.
After the European elections of June 2009 Van Buitenen returned to the European Commission, this time in DG RTD, at a stone's throw from the European Parliament. He checked for possible irregularities in Framework 7 contracts, under acting Head of Unit Peter Baader, a former OLAF official.
Van Buitenen has retired as an EU official in mid-2011.
Read more about this topic: Paul Van Buitenen
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