Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-12-Speech-2-026"
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"en.20050412.6.2-026"2
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"Mr President, we have here a number of very thorough and very perceptive reports for which I would like to thank the rapporteurs, notwithstanding the fact that in a number of cases I can only express wonder that, after such striking and precise criticism of entirely unacceptable states of affairs, they end by recommending discharge – in other words, release from liability for the administration.
I must emphasise that it is not of course Mr Kallas’s fault. We are talking about something that happened in the past, before this Commission. The fact that we are holding others responsible for the past actually distances us somewhat from the matter.
Mr Wynn writes that he finds it disappointing that the Court of Auditors ‘has no reasonable assurance that the supervisory systems and controls of significant areas of the budget are effectively implemented so as to manage the risks concerning the legality and regularity of the underlying operations’. In other words, we again have no positive Statement of Assurance. We have discussed this problem time and time again over the years. We know all too well that there are many different countries with different administrative cultures, but, when it comes down to it, the problems are due to the fact that the legislation drawn up is inappropriate and often does not even achieve the specified aims. On the contrary, the procedure is based on a method that encourages fraud and evasion, and the failure to comply with the budget is in many areas an expression of the fact that the intended policy is not being implemented.
Moreover, we still do not have a modern, acceptable accounting system in a number of areas – that was what Mrs Andreasen was fired for pointing out some time ago – and the conditions for this are still not in place.
When I read the report, I could not help but think of the libretto of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s opera Evita, which is about Evita Peron, wife of the deceased Argentinean president, General Peron. Talking about a charitable foundation she had established, the lyrics say: ‘A little of the cash has gone astray’. It is a bit like that in the EU. The opera’s lyrics also include the words: ‘When the money keeps rolling out, you don’t keep books’. That was in Argentina in the 1950s, but now it is the EU in 2005. It would never be acceptable in the national states, and it ought not to be acceptable here, either. That is why I am going to vote against the budgetary discharge in certain cases, but in favour of a number of the very sensible amendments."@en1
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