Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-13-Speech-2-022"
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"en.20011113.2.2-022"2
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"Mr President, Mr Karlsson, ladies, gentlemen, and members of the Court of Auditors, this report from the Court of Auditors on the 2000 budget year gives the Commission both encouragement and support; it is particularly supportive of the Commissioner for the Budget. Let me thank the Court of Auditors, you, Mr Karlsson and the Court's members and staff for the 2000 Report and give especial additional thanks for the special reports, whose very practical recommendations make them very valuable to the Commission in its work.
It is the Member States who have primary responsibility for monitoring the legality of the use to which Structural Fund resources are put. It is, however, equally true that the Commission bears overall responsibility for the implementation of the Budget and thus for checking that monitoring regulations are clearly framed and enforceable and that the state of affairs does not come to pass in which more or less any Member State can come up with its own interpretation of the monitoring regulations and act accordingly.
The complaint most frequently levelled at the Structural Funds by the Member States is that the monitoring procedures are so complicated. This sometimes reaches the point where the conclusion is to say: ‘In future, we will have the Structural Funds only as a sort of lump sum transfer.’ The Commission, though, does not, of course, support this as the way forward, and I assume that Parliament does not support it either. For when funds go out of the European Budget, they do so in order to achieve definite objectives and not as a general settlement. It is, of course, true that, if we want things to be that way in future, we will have to work at simplifying the regulation in question. I join with the Court of Auditors in calling for a simpler scheme which, being more easily monitored, would lessen the likelihood of error.
‘Complicated procedure’ was also the criticism the Court of Auditors laid at the door of the Sapard programme of agricultural aid for the acceding countries. This afternoon the Commission will be debating the progress reports on the enlargement process as a whole, of which financial control is a very important part, as is the assessment of what progress has been made in the acceding states and of what problems remain to be overcome.
Sapard, though, presents us with the problem of the over EUR 1 billion allocated for 2000 and 2001, of which in fact only EUR 16 million have so far been paid out. I must accept the Court of Auditors' criticism of what is, of course, a very poor result. This will also have to be discussed in the Commission, for the complicated procedure must not result in the funds ceasing to be used at all. When dealing with precise controls in the acceding states, we must, then, find a balance, but not to the detriment of implementation.
Turning to the massive EUR 11.6 billion surplus in the 2000 Budget, the Court of Auditors has explained that a surplus should not be entered in the accounts for the following year, but should, if at all possible in the current budget year, allow the Member States to make reduced payments, which means that the Budget would then be adjusted downwards in the course of the year. I work on the assumption that the Council and the Finance Ministers would surely give this a favourable reception, but that there has to be more careful consideration of what is the right way forward here.
Of last year's Budget surplus, over EUR 3 billion was the result of increased income, which itself was a consequence of last year's growth figures in fact turning out better than had at first been assumed. It was, though, only in November that the official figures became available. Of the surplus, several hundred million euro represent real savings in agriculture as a result of favourable market developments. I see it as a very positive thing if we do not have to spend money, but whether that is actually the case will not be definitely known until the end of the year.
Those who legislated for the Structural Funds had indeed already foreseen the possible difficulties in implementing the programme in its first year, and it is for that reason that the Interinstitutional Agreement provides for the option of transferring funds to subsequent years.
Let me again make it clear that I do not see it in a negative light if, at the end of the year, or, as the Court has proposed, possibly during the current year, funds can be returned to the Member States due to the money not being required. I am probably agreeing with certain comments made in this Parliament when I say that the distinction has to be drawn between the money not being needed in order to achieve a given objective, and the money not having been able to be used because of faulty budget management or shortcomings in administration.
That can be properly assessed only when we are no longer talking in the Budget procedure about how much money is being invested, but rather about what objectives we want to achieve. In this context, I take on board the Court of Auditors' remarks on evaluation and on how important it is in a good Budget procedure.
The Court of Auditors has confirmed the regularity of the accounts, in other words, that the books are in good order, and also of the revenue side of the Budget. It has also certified the reliability of the commitments and of the administrative outgoings. It has, however, criticised the excessive incidence of errors in cash movements.
I would most especially like to express my satisfaction with the Court's practical observations, and with the Court's support for two measures which are of particular concern to me. One, in the area of foreign policy, has to do with the reconstruction of Kosovo. The Court of Auditors has examined the accounting procedures and the profitability of the agency charged with the reconstruction of Kosovo and has come to a highly favourable conclusion, reporting that the agency has succeeded in achieving most of the high targets set for it, and that its administration and budget management were highly efficient economically.
Has the Commission, then, made too few changes in 2000 in order to improve financial management? Let me, on this point, refer to the Court of Auditors' statement that, in 2000, many steps towards reform had only just started to be taken, and that they will only gradually meet with success.
I cannot, at this juncture, list all the steps we have taken since then, but I will all the same highlight a few of them. One example is in the personnel field. Additions have been made to the total personnel complement for financial management, among other things by redeployment within the Commission to reinforce the financial units in the various Directorates-General, and Parliament has made additional posts available for 2001. The selection procedure for these is at present in progress, and it will result in 250 candidates being put on a list to strengthen the financial and personnel management sectors.
I would like, in addition, to mention the steps we are taking in training and development. The Commission's reforms as a whole have meant that there is definitely a greater need for training. A total of 2 800 officials have already been trained in financial management by the Budget Directorate-General and another 1 700 will take part in courses of this sort in the next few months.
The technical assistance offices have also come in for a lot of criticism from us in the past. There are 126 of them, and 93 will have had their contracts with us cancelled by the end of 2001. I see this as an important point; it is something that has been achieved through pressure exerted by Parliament, and we will, for example, be continuing with decentralisation in the field of foreign affairs, in order to make greater use of local knowledge in implementing budget decisions.
This afternoon the Commission will be taking decisions about further new management systems and about the networking of national agencies. A few weeks ago, we adopted a comprehensive package to improve personnel policy. In the summer, I presented the report on the steps the Commission had either taken, or proposed to the legislature, to combat fraud, ranging from regulations on money laundering via customs measures through to the proposal for a European public prosecutor for financial offences.
There is much to do, but much has already been achieved. The Commission is not only active in well over 100 States. It also gives aid following natural catastrophes and gives humanitarian aid in crisis areas and war zones. It is active in many traditional fields, for example in aspects of agriculture, but it also makes funds available for many innovative projects suggested by Parliament. This may sometimes involve large amounts totalling millions, but sometimes, too, relatively small sums of money. We link up researchers and the results of their investigations, share in the financing of high-speed railway lines and of student exchange schemes. This represents a truly broad spectrum of areas of expenditure, and there is nothing rigid about it. The programmes change, the tasks change and the world changes, so we are all constantly being faced with new challenges, and all the European Union's institutions have to be open to them.
We want to create good European policies, which means learning from mistakes in order to make good measures even better. The reports of the Court of Auditors are a fundamental support to us in doing this. So I thank the Court, those of its members who are leaving, those who are continuing to be members of it, and most especially its President. Mr Karlsson, your presidency has seen the further development of the method for the statement of assurance, and the compilation of a very large number of special reports containing very definite and valuable recommendations. The understanding of financial management has improved under your presidency and so, I believe, has the institutions' understanding of each other. For that you have my most especial thanks.
I had strongly urged that the 2000 Budget should make available sufficient funds for the reconstruction of Kosovo. Parliament and, in particular, Mr Bourlanges, whom I would like to mention particularly in his capacity as principal rapporteur on the 2000 Budget, were also very much behind the idea that sufficient funds should be allocated for this purpose.
The good work that was done meant that funds for the agency charged with the reconstruction of Kosovo could even be increased in the course of the 2000 budget year. I am sure that Mr Bourlanges will feel, as I do, that it is quite simply very heartening when measures that one has been especially committed to get such a good report from the Court of Auditors. It goes without saying that this sends an important message to the taxpayers, that money is being invested well in Kosovo, and in an economically efficient way.
I emphasise this for the additional reason that there is a very intense debate going on in the media about the common foreign and security policy, with people asking: where is the European Union? where is the Commission? Here we have a quite tangible example of a common foreign policy measure and a tangible demonstration of what a good result can be achieved if we all pull together.
The second point about which I would like to speak personally, and on which I wish to express my thanks for the Court's support, is the Financial Regulation. The recast of the Financial Regulation is a highly comprehensive undertaking, on which the Court of Auditors gave its opinion in quick order and was of great help to the Commission, not only with the adoption of a formal position, but also with the many meetings on technical and administrative matters.
That may perhaps sound a bit arid, but the fact is that the Financial Regulation lays down Budget procedures in exact terms, stipulating who plays what role, who possesses which supervisory powers and whether, for example, there can be rapid redeployments in the Budget, and where they can be made, in order to take account of changes during the budget year.
I am very grateful to the Court of Auditors for making clear how important it is that all financial arrangements in specified sectors conform to Budget principles, or principles of sound budgeting. I am very grateful to you in this Parliament for the amendments you have proposed even before the summer recess. I can say quite unequivocally and definitely that the recast proposal gained a great deal in terms of quality as a result. For its part, the Commission has now done its homework; so too, on this point, has the Court of Auditors; and so too, to a quite broad extent in this area, has Parliament; I therefore believe it is actually high time for Parliament to formally take up its position, so that then the Council, too, can get its homework over and done with in a similarly short time.
Now I also want to consider some areas in which the Court made some highly critical comments. One case in point is the way in which the Monitoring Regulation for the Structural Funds has been implemented."@en1
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