Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-16-Speech-2-064"
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"en.20000516.4.2-064"2
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"Mr President, I also congratulate Mr Bösch on his report. He is the acknowledged expert within the European Parliament and, to a large extent, was the architect of the new OLAF. One thing that is certain to create a stir in terms of the EU is big stories about fraud. They always get big coverage. That is quite right too because any fraud is unacceptable. The figure that is being attached to it is about 5% of the EU budget. But there are two important points to remember, which have been touched upon several times here today – and Mr Cunha has just raised them again. The Court of Auditors does not distinguish between fraud and administrative and financial irregularities; that is, administrative mistakes and people who set out to cheat the EU of money. To give you an example, a farmer may fill out a form incorrectly. That is not to say that he means to defraud. It may be that he measured his land incorrectly. And then there are the big fraudsters: the people who, for example, import cigarettes illegally, avoiding tax. There is a huge difference between these two things. We need to have them distinguished much more clearly.
Let us not forget that 80% of the fraud takes place within Member States. Yesterday the Commission made a commitment to us that they want to cut irregularities by 2%. We want to know whether the Member States will follow that lead. It is clear that a lot of the problems lie there, in particular with the Structural Funds.
To take up Mr Dell'Alba's point, the Socialists will be voting against a number of paragraphs in this report, not necessarily because we do not agree with them, but because it is not the right context in which to discuss these points which relate to the White Paper.
Finally, I want to read out a list of shame – Member States which have not yet ratified the Convention on the Protection of the Financial Interests of the EU: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland and France. It is about time they signed up. They have had five years to do it. Let us see them ratify it."@en1
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