Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-17-Speech-2-199"
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"en.20021217.6.2-199"2
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".
Mr President, to come back to Mr Heaton-Harris’s question about responsibility for the 2001 accounts, it was of course the chief accountant at the time who was responsible for the accounts for the whole year, including the annual statement for 2001.
Regarding Mr van Dam’s question, I must again point out that it is not correct to say that the European Union’s and the European Commission’s accounts did not meet international standards. There are, however, different international standards, there are standards that are based solely on the cash accounting principle and there is a further development with a view to more managerial categories.
In the past, the Financial Regulation, that is the law that applies to us and also to the other institutions, had only prescribed the cash accounting principle. This met the standard and it was followed. I have pointed out that the further development is a relatively recent development, even for the public sector. I repeat, the corresponding IPSA standards of the International
Federation
of
Accountants are the first standards for the public sector and were adopted in the year 2000, the most recent one not until October 2002, that is, two months ago. These standards do not yet cover every issue; in other words, it is in fact an ongoing development, and in that respect we can truly say that we are in the vanguard if we decide to go in that direction – and that is what we have done with the Financial Regulation.
Regarding Mrs Stauner’s question, you have again assumed, Mrs Stauner, that the Court of Auditors would not give a statement of assurance for the accounts. That is not correct. I would stress once again that this year the Court of Auditors again found, for the year 2001, that the financial statement, the budget account gives a true picture of the revenue and expenditure. You were the rapporteur, the general rapporteur, Mrs Stauner, and you also confirmed this in your statement. I will explain once again that the financial statement is of course submitted not only to the European Court of Auditors but also to the Council and Parliament, in other words the books are open on the table.
Regarding Mr Kuhne’s question about the development of the necessary computer system, here too, I will say again that when I look at the situation in some Member States, where many different financial statements are produced because they do not yet have a uniform system, I can only say that the previous Commission took an important step here in 1999 when it required all entries in the books to be made using the same system.
That was a tremendous step for the European Commission, too, since there were previously five or seven different financial statements – I do not remember the exact number – that then had to be integrated or could not be completely integrated. That was therefore essential, and we all know that software and computer systems, too, continue to develop. Regarding the SAP system, for example, on which our bookkeeping is based or which does our bookkeeping, SAP is running the software in question only until 2004; a new system is now being introduced all over the world and we are faced with the task of having to adopt it and introduce it over that period of time.
I turn now to Mrs Theato’s question. What will happen in the meantime? Work is of course being done all the time. For example, work is now being done to create a central register of accounts and a central register for contracts, which will then be available to all services. We now have the SI-II System for sections managing funds. The data it produces are input into the SAP accounting system, after having been checked by financial control.
The managers of resources cannot consult the accounting system direct. They have no access, that is correct, but they cannot consult it either. The aim is that the chief accountant will make the data available to everyone so that there will be no more inconsistencies but at the same time, of course, that safeguards are maintained, so that the person managing the funds cannot, as it were, get past the front-line security and through to the transaction."@en1
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