Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-13-Speech-1-092"
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"en.19991213.4.1-092"2
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"Mr President, each year I find the Court of Auditors’ reports as fascinating as ever. Irrespective of which programmes or areas are examined, 5% of the funds, that is to say SEK 40 billion, have disappeared from the system. I genuinely welcome these reports.
In spite of the fact that you in the Court of Auditors have previously pointed out irregularities and given good advice to the Commission, we note once again this year, that is to say for 1998, that the Commission’s changes have not in any way made the system as a whole either any clearer or more comprehensive. We are talking here about exceeding budgets. Sometimes, there is a complete lack of information. It is public purchasing procedures which are lacking. Sometimes, straightforward doubts about how to proceed are also in evidence.
SEK 40 billion is two years’ worth of funds contributed by Swedish tax-payers to the European Union. For SEK 40 billion, two million Swedish workers could go over to a 35-hour working week and still receive the same wages. Moreover, this is a trend I think we could look into and encourage when we consider how we use the structural funds, for this would be one way of making good use of these in terms of job-creation measures. In short, we can see that we could do a lot of good things for SEK 40 billion. The new Commission has said it wants to tighten up the system, but then it has also been saying as much every year.
As far as I am concerned, it is quite obvious that the European Union has too much power and too many budgetary resources compared with the ability and qualifications it has to handle these. That, I believe, is why the Member States have a lack of interest in accepting due responsibility.
Constantly patching up the system just seems to encourage various degrees of crookedness, most recently now in Sweden where the Commission’s own Stockholm office has just been suspected of having paid out wages to people who do not exist. That is amazing, to say the least.
I should like to conclude with a question to the President of the Court of Auditors: why have you not obtained the right to examine the European Investment Fund? I hope that it is not for reasons of making future savings that the President of the Court of Auditors is not availing himself of the language of our common, untamed homeland, that is to say of Swedish."@en1
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