The Ministry of Education said today that the European Commission's decision to temporarily suspend the Youth in Action and Lifelong Learning programmes was a precautionary measure until administrative procedures for reporting to the National Authority and the European Unit Programme Agency (EUPA) were put in place.

"This suspension will be lifted once the European Union is satisfied that corrective measures have been implemented. The necessary action is being taken for this suspension to be lifted as soon as possible," the ministry said.

It added that EUPA had been asked by the Commission to honour the contracts it had made with individuals and organisations under the two programmes.

"The participation of organisations and individuals in the centralised activities will not be affected," the ministry said.

The ministry stressed that no indication of fraud had been made by the European Commission over this issue. Neither was it true that the European Fraud Office had made some investigation on the actions of the Ministry of Education as the National Programmes Authority, or the European Unit Programme Agency (EUPA) as the agency which implemented the programmes.

It was also not true that the EU auditors had suspended Malta's participation in the programmes after they turned down the audits made by the EUPA auditors.

With reference to reports that one of the managers of the programmes is Alessandro Cristina, the son of the Education Minister, the ministry said that Mr Cristina was engaged after a public call seven years ago when the Mrs Cristina was not responsible for this sector.

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