Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-04-Speech-3-017"
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"en.20021204.2.3-017"2
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"Mr President, what would happen if a small Danish limited company with 100 employees were to draw up annual accounts about which a chartered accountant made a declaration emphasising that most of the reservations were due to the fact that they recurred from year to year; and if it were confirmed that the weaknesses were to a large extent due to the failure of the company’s accounting system to provide adequate assurance that its balance sheet was complete and included all the elements of the company’s activities; and if, in addition, the declaration stated that there were problems with the monitoring and security systems, and that the data in the system were not complete; and it continued by saying that it was a matter of concern that the company did not give a high enough priority to remedying these defects, and that it had not given sufficient consideration to the area or allocated enough resources to finding a solution to the problems within a reasonable time frame? What would happen if it was ultimately concluded that no declaration could be made as to whether the construction work, purchases or services forming the basis of the payments to the local recipients, actually took place? If all this happened, the board of directors would, firstly, refuse to give discharge to the management. It would then get rid of the management. After that, the taxation authorities would turn up and seize all the business’s accounts documentation for critical analysis. Afterwards, the business would have its taxes raised to the tune of the undocumented expenditure, and finally there would be talk of criminal liability.
But not so in the EU. This is just the approach we take for private business. Here, the Commission seeks to silence criticism by all possible means, which is exactly what happened with the sacked accounts director Mrs Marta Andreasen, and when Parliament wished to make thorough enquiries into her criticism, a majority in the Conference of Presidents prevented us from holding a hearing. If the criticism was unjustified, as the Commission claims, we would of course clear this up, and all would be well. However, the Commission knows, and the European Court of Auditors has confirmed, that the criticism is justified, and therefore it must not come to light. Instead, this Parliament chooses to turn a blind eye; which means giving discharge, as otherwise the citizens could find out that the EU finances are not under control. I think that it is incredibly unwise to continue with this hush-hush policy, and I do not believe that it is possible in the long run to avoid the scandal that is the EU’s failure to manage the money the taxpayers are handing over to us. I find the report very enlightening. The problem is that we do not dare to back our criticism up with action."@en1
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