Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-08-Speech-2-021"
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"en.20030408.1.2-021"2
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"Mr President, I would like to praise the rapporteurs for the seven reports that we are discussing today. These reports focus time and time again on the major problems that exist with the financial management of the considerable funds that tax-payers in the fifteen States pay to the EU. Some of the accounts are reasonably satisfactory, but unfortunately this applies mainly to the smaller or minor units, the Council, the Court of Justice, the Economic and Social Committee, the Ombudsman, Parliament and the Coal and Steel Community.
It must be said, however, that the situation remains entirely unsatisfactory in the large areas that fall within the Commission’s remit. In Mr Casaca’s outstanding report it is emphasised that, while the accounts as a whole are formally correct as far as the income, liabilities and administrative expenses are concerned, such a declaration still cannot be made in respect of all the other payments. It is also stated that, in the past six years, very little progress has been made towards complying with the Court of Auditors’ comments on the accounting system. It is stressed that, in connection with the closure of the accounts for 2001, the Commission infringed the Financial Regulation, and, on page after page, we read the very weighty observations that ought to make us adopt a very different position which goes much further than we are currently doing.
Far too much regular fraud and deception is still taking place, and, when it is revealed by an honest public servant – whether it be Dorte Schmidt-Brown or Marta Andreasen – the person in question is dismissed and often has their name dragged through the mud. The person in question is said to be ‘not right in the head’ and those responsible are promoted. Note that Budget Commissioner Mrs Schreyer did not today answer Mr Blak’s request for compensation for Dorte Schmidt-Brown. I would like to support Mr Blak’s remarks. Mrs Schreyer will have the opportunity to speak again and to respond to Mr Blak’s express request.
I feel that there is a lack of will in Parliament to tackle the entirely unacceptable economic management that we are witnessing in respect of large parts of the EU’s funds. The EU was not created yesterday. The EU is not a union of unstable developing countries. The EU Member States overwhelmingly have national administrations that work far more responsibly and precisely than the EU. The reality, however, is that the EU’s administration is such that responsibility is an entirely undefined concept. The Commission clearly has no control over the director-generals and their public servants, and, regardless of the number of times that Parliament complains of faults and shortcomings, these are not corrected effectively. There always seems to be a mentality that this is not our own money and that the people concerned are not held accountable in the same way as national civil servants and politicians are held accountable for the budgets in the national states. The EU advertises itself in terms of greater democracy, greater transparency and an EU for the citizens, but the truth is that the EU is the opposite: the more EU, the less democracy, the less transparency, the less responsibility – but the citizens are too far away to find that out.
Parliament is doing the EU a disservice by, year after year, turning a blind eye to the fact that the reforms requested by the group of wise men in 1999 have still not been implemented. A majority of Parliament would no doubt vote for all the budgets because they do not dare confront their citizens with the fact that the EU’s administration is not functioning well enough. The Commission can therefore take the criticism easily. Nothing happens, even if the reforms are postponed year after year. We are, however, sending the wrong signal by adopting all the accounts. We are ourselves being irresponsible if we tell our electorates that this is good enough – because it is emphatically not. It is on this basis that some of us wish to vote against the reports concerning the Commission, the development funds and the agencies, but we will vote for the reports that recommend postponement of discharge.
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteurs for the outstanding work done by themselves and their assistants on these reports."@en1
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