Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-03-Speech-2-128"
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"en.20010403.7.2-128"2
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"Mr President, I welcome the various reports, the Blak, Stauner, Folias, Seppänen, van der Laan and Rühle reports, because I know so much work went into them. I want to restrict my comments to Freddy Blak's excellent report on the Commission discharge for 1999.
1999 – what a year that was. Not only was it the first year that I was elected – and hold back your cheers now – but in budgetary control terms it was fascinating. It was the year of three types of Commission: two months of the old Commission that had a number of problems that we all know about; six months of no Commission whatsoever because they were not taking any management decisions; and then the rest of the year was with the new Commission who had no time to implement any of the reforms. 1999 – another year with an error rate of about 5% or roughly EUR 4.5 billion. 1999 – the sixth year running that the Court of Auditors refused to write off the accounts. 1999 – the year in which Freddy Blak found huge errors, fraud and problems in the accounts, scandals all of them including, for example, the wonderful Washington delegation that warranted a whole two paragraphs in the report. I believe the Commissioner will be able to confirm that the building was bought for USD 0.5 million, refurbished to the tune of USD 2.2 million – that is four times what it was bought for – whilst renting somewhere else for about USD 18 000 per month which was cheaper than where the Commission's residence was beforehand because I believe it was in the Four Seasons Hotel.
There were other problems with IRELA, flax and Fléchard, too, and all we have to do in this House is look at our previous reports. We have consistently said that if the error rate does not improve in the 1999 year, then we could not and should not pass these accounts. The error rate quite simply did not improve. I checked with the Court of Auditors and they confirmed that the error rate was the same or marginally worse.
What conclusions should we draw from this? It is fairly obvious: the error rate did not improve; EUR 4.5 billion lost, unaccounted for, mismanaged; we do not give discharge. I hear that the Socialists and other Groups are actually thinking of granting discharge and I cannot think why. How on earth are we going to explain that back home? Please do not be scared that by not granting discharge you will cause this Commission to fall. You simply will not. There is nothing in the Treaties that says that must happen. 1999 is not the year for which this Commission is responsible.
What you will be doing, however, is sending a message to this Commission and the public who elected us here – you remember them, some of them actually bother to visit us occasionally – that we are steadfastly against waste, fraud and mismanagement; that we are drawing a line in the sand, that what went before 1999 was completely unacceptable and what happens now and in the future must be better. Commissioner, I would appreciate your answer on the Washington delegation because it is very odd that we do not get to see a number of these facts until we actually ask for them. I also ask you to promise us that the error rate will improve."@en1
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