Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-26-Speech-3-168"
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"en.20060426.15.3-168"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
Secondly, we will enhance transparency in the use of EU funds. Next week the Commission will adopt a Green Paper on the European Transparency Initiative. As part of the paper, the Commission will propose the introduction of an obligation on Member States to publish the list of beneficiaries of EU funds under shared management. To that end, the Commission will establish a centralised web portal.
Thirdly, we will continue to increase the participation of national auditing institutions. Last week, the Commission sent each of these national audit institutions detailed lists of all of the payments made to their respective Member States in 2005, also inviting them to share the results of their audits with the Commission and the Court of Auditors. This is an initial stage of the implementation of our Action Plan, and I know that several national auditing institutions are prepared to verify the sound use of EU funds in their countries. Thus the first steps have been taken in this direction, and I intend to raise this matter at the meeting of the coordinating committee of the European and national audit courts, to be held in Poland at the end of this year.
Honourable Members, when I appeared before you last year I said that ‘mobilising and motivating the Member States will not be easy, and the Commission continues to need your support’. I have enjoyed that support in the past year, and I wish to confirm that we, for our part, will do our utmost. As a first step, we plan to follow the recommendations you will adopt today.
Thank you for your attention.
Today we are looking at a glass which is certainly only half full, but is gradually filling up.
This year, in addition to the positive endorsement of the European Union’s budget accounting, revenues, appropriations, administrative expenditures and the European Development Fund, the European Court of Auditors is quite satisfied with the supervision of agricultural expenditures and the aid granted to candidate states. The expenditures that the Court of Auditors approved of represent nearly one third of the European Union’s budget. I am pleased that this progress is also reflected in Parliament’s reports, and that it has been proposed that Parliament should approve the Commission’s implementation of the budget.
Allow me to express my sincere gratitude to rapporteurs Mr Jan Mulder, Mrs Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou (who examined the European Development Fund) and Mr Szabolcs Fazakas, Chairman of Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control, who have skilfully guided the entire process. Parliament has drawn up an extensive list of recommendations for improvements. The Commission intends to observe most of these, and to report on this as required.
We all know that the glass is not yet full, but Parliament supports the plan approved by the Commission in June 2005 to devise an integrated internal control framework, as well as the action plan approved by the Commission in January 2006.
Now that we know what is missing, let me concentrate on the missing part. Firstly, I applaud Parliament for the text of the inter-institutional agreement, which arose as a result of negotiations held with the Council and for the first time mentions issues of budget control and endorsement.
We all know that the implementation of this political agreement will require continued work, and the Commission certainly intends to do its utmost in the achievement of that objective.
We also seek to improve the expression of accountability vis-à-vis the European Parliament and the European taxpayer. We plan to devote a considerable amount of attention to three measures.
Firstly, we will strengthen the procedure for the preparation of Annual Activity Reports and improve its consistency across General Directorates. We will also make amendments to the Synthesis Report, although not as elaborately as the European Parliament has recommended."@en1
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