Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-29-Speech-3-145"
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"en.20001129.9.3-145"2
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"Mr President, Mr Kinnock, Mrs Schreyer, ladies and gentlemen, this debate marks the climax of Parliament’s examination of the White Paper on the reform of the Commission. This examination is intended, above all, to give new life, new support, to the Commission after the crisis it has suffered, which we all regret.
This other party is specifically the internal auditing service, which will be completely independent. The Court of Auditors also says that, on the express condition that the role of the contractor...
I will end by saying that this is not a time for complacency, Mr President. We are not here to celebrate a victory. The fact that this Parliament is supporting the reform of the Commission should encourage it to shoulder its risks, its responsibility, as Mr Kinnock has promised, and also to get it right. They have the duty to get it right and to take risks, not to avoid them.
I would like to warmly thank Mrs Guy-Quint, Mr Harbour and Mr Lamassoure for their work. We four rapporteurs have worked in a great spirit of cooperation and that means that this procedure, which is complicated in itself, will tomorrow give rise to four coordinated reports, which do not overlap each other and which provide the encouragement which we all wish to see for the task and responsibility which President Prodi has taken on.
While each report deals with the aspects which concern each committee, there is a common element amongst the four: they all express a generally favourable opinion of the proposals for reform presented by the Commission in its White Paper, although at the same time they remain vigilant with regard to their implementation and development.
With regard to the Committee on Budgetary Control, I am pleased to inform you that my report has been approved unanimously, apart from one abstention, and that we have been unanimous in stressing once again the need for a strong, independent, transparent and efficient Commission; in short, a genuine pillar for European integration. We have also been unanimous in stating that many of the shortcomings and irregularities that were condemned during the discharge for 1996 were due to the fact that previous Commissions had not managed to modernise their management and control systems and had not applied all of the legislation in force.
In drawing up my report, I have been able to study not only the White Paper, but also the second report of the committee of independent experts and the resolution adopted by this Parliament on 19 January, proposed by Michiel van Hulten, on the work of the aforementioned committee of experts. The Committee on Budgetary Control and I myself are pleased to see that, in producing the White Paper, the Commission has largely taken its inspiration from the proposals of the independent experts and has taken account of many of the observations made by Parliament on 19 January.
As the committee with responsibility for budgetary control, I highlight in the report approved by the committee the aspects of the reform concerning competence in this area. In this respect, we have fully supported the establishment of a true sense of responsibility amongst officials. This is the basis of the new philosophy for management of the Commission: each administrative unit will be expected to take responsibility for the regularity and legality of all its actions. The Directors-General will have responsibility for the internal control of their directorates-general, without in any way exempting the respective Commissioners from their own political responsibility with regard to the functioning of the services and that includes, where appropriate, the President of the Commission.
The main task of the new internal auditing service, under your direct responsibility, Mr Kinnock, Vice-President with responsibility for reform, will be to analyse the functions and systems of internal control which exist within the Commission. This function is, as the Court of Auditors points out in its report 4/97, much broader and more general than the current function performed by
overall control.
In this respect, I would like to remind you that on 5 October last our Parliament gave the green light to the amendment of Article 24(5) of the financial regulation currently in force. In that way Parliament put an end to what the Court of Auditors had been condemning since 1981 and which it reiterated in its report 4/97: a latent conflict which exists between the power to grant an approval – and hence to authorise an item of expenditure – and the task of assessing it soon after according to criteria of good financial management. This amendment makes sense in a transitional period until the adoption of the new financial regulation which, according to the recommendations of the committee of experts, is intended to establish a system of control, based not on
centralized control, but on
auditing.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the new system will prove to be more effective than the current one. The Court of Auditors, in its report 4/97, repeats its position with regard to the impact of financial control, which is not evenly balanced. Compared to the great efficiency that it demonstrates with regard to appropriations managed directly by the Commission, its weakness with regard to decentralised operational costs is notable. Evidence of this weakness can be found in the extremely limited number of refusals of approval, of authorisation, originating from the Commission. The Court of Auditors indicates in its report that it is not opposed to the removal of prior approval provided that it is replaced by other procedures, which offer guarantees that are at least equivalent, and can thereby involve parties other than the financial controller."@en1
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"(The President indicated that the speaker’s allotted time had elapsed)"1
"ex post, a posteriori"1
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