Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-01-Speech-3-034"
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"en.20000301.4.3-034"2
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"I am also grateful, at the risk of being repetitive, to Mrs Theato for the consistent attention that she has given to these matters and indeed the way in which, if she will allow me to say so, she played midwife to many of the changes which we are now contemplating. I hope that she will come to take pride in the child for which she has at least part parentage.
Lastly, the system we currently have – as the Committee of Independent Experts asserted very strongly – is now unsustainable. Indeed the Court of Auditors has called it fiction. Change will have to come in any case, change would imply a transition period because there is no possibility of any system being invented that could enable us to move from one Friday to the next Monday from one system to another. In so far as it is at all possible with all of the advice at our disposal and all of the design capability that we have, I am certain that we have installed, or that we will install on the basis of our proposals, a system that will provide the Union, its taxpayers and this House with complete security.
First of all, I am not sure if I got the interpretation properly, but I do not think it would be possible for someone as expert as Mrs Theato to talk about the abolition of independent financial control. There is a degree of independence obviously allocated to the current Financial Controller by the financial regulation. However, because of the mixture of roles of both financial management and control, and audit under the present terms, it is very difficult to think of this as an uncompromised role, no matter how great the integrity of the person actually holding it. So, the changes that we seek to make – as I say consistent with the very strong and clear recommendations of the Committee of Independent Experts – are not negative in any way at all.
Coherence, consistency and universally good standards in a decentralised system of financial control are guaranteed by a series of measures. One is to ensure high quality training, another is to ensure that no Directorate-General can take over financial control responsibilities unless and until the auditor service is absolutely certain of the robustness of the system, another is the establishment of a central financial service, as honourable Members will see from the White Paper, to ensure that those standards are set and supervised, and there is also the additional belt and braces and boilersuit approach of having an effective and independent internal audit service.
I will not go into all the details in the course of a parliamentary answer of this kind but I am certain that on examination Mrs Theato will be able to see that in the details of the White Paper, there are very strong assurances. There will also be evidence of the fact that we have taken heed of the representations made in this House particularly in the Committee on Budgetary Control, and that is significant in respect of the use of ex ante visas in Directorates-General. If that is felt in a Directorate-General to be a relevant and effective way of enhancing financial control, the ex ante system can be used.
Naturally, there are diverse requirements across the Commission depending on the number and nature of the financial transactions in which particular Directorates-General have to engage. Account is taken of that too in the White Paper but where there is a desire and a demonstrated need for the use of such a system, it most certainly can be used.
Lastly on transition, I share the reservations of Mrs Theato over so-called “soft law”. We have had this discussion before and she knows I make a distinction between various forms of codes which can have a very positive effect and eventually be turned into what I suppose we could call “hard law”. But, on this issue, I do not see any room for soft law which is why in the transition period there will be total adherence to the current financial regulation until that law is changed by due democratic process in this House and in the Council. There are absolute assurances of that and provisions made for it in the White Paper.
In addition, however, and very importantly, because it is a transition period, there will be training, there will be advice, there will be support, there will be assurances. The new head of the audit unit will be in place by 1 May and with that and an accumulation of other assurances I think that we can be as certain as human beings can be that there will be a totally secure system even during the period of transition.
Two other points I must make, because this is an essential question central to reform. The first one is that people feel – for reasons I well understand – that in that transition there is a danger either of irresponsibility or of inertia.
Irresponsibility because the feeling exists in some quarters that there will not be sufficient control and discipline. I completely reject that simply because of the standards of Commission officials, the responsibility of directors-general and the assurances that we have built into the system. Inertia would only be born of anxiety and we are doing everything we can in terms of support and training to diminish the possibility of that occurring."@en1
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