Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-13-Speech-1-087"
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"en.19991213.4.1-087"2
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"In the area of structural measures the Court has detected a high incidence of errors with regard to the final recipients of the Community aid and the public bodies managing the funds. The most common errors are financing ineligible transactions, overpayments, breaching tendering or state aid rules and insufficient supporting documentation. They indicate that Member States urgently need to reinforce their control systems.
As regards the protection of the financial interests of the Community, this year has been marked by the establishment of the European Fraud Investigation Office, OLAF, in which the Court's opinion and reports have played a certain role. The Court will continue to work closely with OLAF while at the same time continuing to examine the way in which it carries out its duties.
I would like to recall that the Treaty requires Member States to cooperate with the Commission to ensure that funds are used in accordance with principles of sound financial management and to take the same measures to counter fraud against the Community budget as are taken to protect national financial interests. However, only one Member State has fully ratified the conventions and the related protocols signed in 1995 and 1997 on the protection of the European Communities' financial interests and on fighting corruption. Only three other Member States have done so partially.
I have now presented to you the Court of Auditors' annual report for 1998. The audit findings confirm that the financial management culture urgently needs to be changed. It is indispensable to set measurable policy objectives and evaluate performance against these; to seek for efficiency and effectiveness; to transform the Commission's internal audit function and to reinforce Member State controls; to find better ways of ensuring legality, regularity and value for money; to simplify the financial rules and stick to sound budgetary and accounting principles; to promote accountability; to adopt the necessary measures to allow the recruitment and allocation of staff according to needs; to sustain reform.
Implementing all these measures will take time. I am convinced that the new Commission is determined to achieve this change, which is needed for the success of future enlargement of the Union. By speeding up the enlargement process the Commission has given us the task of speeding up reform.
The other European Community institutions and the Member States are consequently called upon to collaborate. On behalf of the European Court of Auditors, I can assure you that the Court will contribute to this initiative in a constructive manner.
According to the Treaty, in those areas where management is shared with the Member States, the Commission has the responsibility to supervise and ensure that national control systems are adequate. The Court's audit in 1998 reveals shortcomings in supervisory activity. The Commission also needs to step up its supervision of bodies implementing Community funds on its behalf, such as the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund.
As noted in the Court's Special Report No 3/99 on the management and control of interest-rate subsidies, on occasions the Commission had little knowledge of the projects or of the final beneficiaries.
The Commission has now embarked on a process of administrative reform which should embrace fundamental improvements in financial control both at the Commission and in the Member States. As Parliament knows, the Court has already pointed out in Opinion No 4/97, on one of the Commission's proposed revisions of the financial regulation, that the role of the various officials responsible for control should be redefined. In particular, the authorising officer must be responsible for checking the regularity, the quality and effectiveness of the measures undertaken.
A genuine, independent audit function should be introduced. Its purpose should be to check the way the control structures set up by the managing departments work and to ensure that they are satisfactory.
Management and control of Community programmes are being decentralised from the Commission to national authorities and other intermediaries. This should be accompanied by development of management information and accounting systems, which would enable the Commission to exercise proper supervision to detect errors and cases of misadministration promptly. Where national systems of management and control are found inadequate, the flow of funds could be halted until remedial action has been taken.
Currently, the Commission is preparing a global revision of the Financial Regulation. This exercise must be carried out with care and vision even if it means extending the duration of related work. As I have already said, when presenting the annual report to the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Commission should increase its effort to simplify its financial and accounting regulations and procedures. They should be aimed at facilitating and speeding up operations while maintaining the required degree of control.
Improved management also requires mastery of human resources. The Commission's staffing is a general problem that the Court has frequently highlighted. The 1998 annual report again draws attention to shortcomings in this matter.
The Commission, like any other efficient organisation, needs a flexible staffing policy which will allow it to recruit, allocate and redeploy its staff better, taking account of the numbers and skills of staff needed for specific activities. In the meantime, the Commission should ensure that it accepts no additional responsibilities without sufficient personnel being made available."@en1
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