Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-26-Speech-3-160"
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".
Mr President, around 3 p.m. this afternoon, I asked at roughly what time I would be given the floor, and I was told at around 5.45 p.m. It is now 7.45 p.m. I do not know who had the wisdom to compile this agenda, but I do not think it does Parliament any favours to hold a discharge debate about the European institutions at this time of day.
Finally, the next few years will prove crucial to the Commission. There must be a positive Statement of Assurance at some point.
I am very grateful to the members of the Secretariat of COCOBU for their enormous efficiency and skill, and, needless to say, also to my personal staff.
Moving on to the order of the day and cutting to the chase, I would advise the House to grant discharge to the Commission in respect of the financial year 2004. This may come as a surprise to you, because as everyone knows and as probably many people will say, the Court of Auditors has not issued a Statement of Assurance about the Commission’s conduct of policy for 11 years in a row. So what is the use of granting discharge? I have two arguments to put to you in favour. Firstly, this Commission was in office for roughly one month in 2004 and secondly, this Commission started very ambitiously with a view to achieving a positive Statement of Assurance. I will return to this in a moment.
Although it is unfortunate that Mr Wynn is absent, I should like to start with last year’s resolution which he compiled and in which he introduced a number of fresh elements, the key one being that we felt that the highest political authority in every Member State should make a declaration at the beginning and end of each financial year to the effect that everything is in order in terms of political control. It is unfortunate that this demand by Parliament has met with much resistance in the Member States.
There have been a number of developments since then. An Interinstitutional Agreement has been concluded in which we have reached a compromise with the Council to the effect that it does not matter whether the political level is the highest or not. We will also accept a declaration at any level that is suitable for this purpose in every Member State, provided that this declaration is made. I would like to find out from the Commission what it intends to do with the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Another development has been the fact that some countries are now saying that they object to this. I should like to find out what the Commission’s response to this position is, because I get the impression that more and more countries are sharing this view. I have to say in all of this is that it is never the Member States that are solely responsible; it is always the Commission that carries ultimate responsibility.
We should welcome the Commission’s action plan with open arms. It is a good thing that common standards are introduced, that integrated control is in place, that there is better cooperation with national courts of auditors, and suchlike. We would also appreciate it, in a different connection, if the Commission were to identify risk areas in the budget, namely what the high-risk and low-risk areas are. It is therefore important that Member States should shoulder their political responsibility. This is something we also demand from the Commission itself. Not only the Director-General should sign for the annual accounts; we think that the Commissioner who is responsible for a specific policy area should also be required to add their signature.
I will have to speed through my speech because the clock is ticking. The President of the Court of Auditors once again published his annual report in November and made an interesting suggestion. He put forward the idea of a peer review, which means that ex-presidents of national courts of auditors should examine whether or not the methodology and working practices of their counterpart at European level are correct. We see this as important and applaud this suggestion; we are keen to play an active role in this with the European Court of Auditors.
There is yet more work to be done by the European Court of Auditors. In the discharge report, a specific request was made for two reports, in the first instance about the management of the funds granted by the European Union to the UN bodies. What is the added value for Europe if we give the money via the United Nations? Secondly, what is financial control like over there?
We also want the non-governmental organisation to be the subject of an investigation by the Court of Auditors for a change. What is the ‘non-governmental’ proportion in those non-governmental organisations? How much money do they have at their own disposal?"@en1
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