Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-29-Speech-4-992"
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"en.20040129.2.4-992"2
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".
I entirely endorse the Casaca report, which states that, at the time that Parliament gave discharge in respect of the budget for the 2001 financial year, it had not been made aware of certain important items of information, particularly on the Eurostat affair. Like Mr Casaca, I denounce the Commission’s withholding of information, its ‘culture of secrecy, complexity and lack of clarity’, and the Commissioners’ failure to face up to their political responsibilities (paragraph 24).
It is necessary, though, to take this argument to its logical conclusion by also stating what has brought about this culture of opaqueness bordering on arrogance: it is a consequence of the privileged position accorded to the Commission among the institutions, and of the sense of superiority which follows from it, and it is this sense of superiority that it is desired to bolster by means of the European Constitution.
The Casaca report also highlights two other intolerable states of affairs.
The first of these is the Commissioners’ lack of any clear and effective authority over their directors-general (paragraph 29), which means that the Commission’s departments have become fiefdoms in the true sense of the word.
There is also the Commission’s consistent refusal to investigate the real ownership of companies applying for contracts and grants from the Commission, especially when there are strong suspicions that Commission officials are their true owners (paragraph 47)."@en1
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