Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-021"
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"en.20001115.1.3-021"2
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"Mr President, although the Court cannot provide a positive Statement of Assurance for 1999, the tone of the report on the whole is more positive than it has been in previous years. I would like to congratulate the Commission, and Commissioner Schreyer in particular, on the Court's observation that many of the changes it has requested are being implemented or are on the way to being implemented. There is particular praise for the reform programme set in motion last year.
I would also like to pick on the Council by asking why it is not moving forward on Article 24 of the Financial Regulation. Parliament moved very quickly to give its opinion and I hope that Council will be able to do the same and adopt its position well before Christmas.
Having said that, I was disappointed in the report as the first step in the discharge procedure. It is too political in the negative sense of the word. It avoids strong criticisms and it does not point any fingers. Other Members have already pointed this out. Member States should be put on the spot when they misuse Community funds, and political groups in this Parliament should be named when they misuse taxpayers' money, as my colleague, Mr Kuhne, pointed out earlier this year. The error rate should be made explicit so that targets can be set for getting the error rate down.
We need to look at the way the Court works and how its independence from the institutions and the programmes it is meant to audit can be strengthened. That may require giving the President of the Court more power to take decisions on the Court's working methods and on the way it communicates.
I should like to say a few words about Parliament's place in this report. The report is positive about steps that have been taken by Parliament to remedy problems that have been identified by the Court, too positive in my view. Many of these changes have either not yet been implemented or have been implemented partially. Parliament can solve most problems by swiftly moving on two fronts. Firstly, by instituting its own internal audit service and secondly, by adopting three urgently needed statutes: a statute for Members, a statute for assistants and a statute for political groups.
Finally, Mr Karlsson, while we, as a Parliament, make all these changes, perhaps you could go and help America count its votes! The error rate in the Florida count is clearly still too high. Perhaps some European Union common sense will help sort out the problem and give George Bush his rightful place in history – its dustbin!"@en1
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