Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-28-Speech-4-015"
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"en.20020228.1.4-015"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Socrates programme is a good example of action that relates closely to the people and which has an important European value-added element. We have also had some experience of it in Finland, which became involved in the programme while EU membership was still being negotiated. We on the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport hope that the current applicant countries will take full advantage of the opportunities the programme offers.
The Centre for International Mobility, which administers the programme in Finland, recently published a study on the experiences of foreign exchange students. We are very pleased that Finland is of interest as a destination. Every year we receive more than 3 000 foreign students. As the report may have universal applicability I will summarise it briefly. The respondents stressed the importance of study in a foreign country, above all with regard to personal and social growth. The courses of study were also reasonably successful. The exchange students completed an average of thirty-three study weeks during the academic year. Finland earned special praise for the excellent facilities in its universities and colleges, particularly computers and libraries, as well as for the study guidance provided and student halls of residence.
From the point of view of the mobility of the workforce it is interesting that the students said they were now more willing to consider a possible career in Finland. This was especially true of students from Central Europe: southern Europeans were not very interested in working in a Nordic country. The report under discussion pays particular attention to the processing of applications and the flow of payments. Although there have been improvements in these areas problems still remain. The report states that unwarranted delays in the payment of grants hamper the implementation of programmes and bring Community institutions into disrepute.
With regard to this, I would, if I may, draw everyone’s attention to Parliament’s role as a provider of guidelines. While, on the one hand, we insist on greater efficiency and flexibility, we might, on the other hand, be increasing bureaucracy and making it take longer to deal with matters. For example, the Commission used to make a lump-sum payment to the Technical Assistance Office to cover payment of grants. Now it has to fill out as many as one thousand eight hundred separate payment orders. This obviously has an impact on the speed of the process. Furthermore, the implementation of the programmes in the Member States must be subjected to assessment by an external auditor. Therefore, a small rural university in Finland, for example, has to embark on a costly procedure for the sake, let us say, of two minor projects, even though, under our laws, the State Audit Office will perform the same task in any case. To prevent malpractice and error we should establish good administrative practice and not just devise ever more complicated control systems."@en1
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