Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-14-Speech-2-027"
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"en.20061114.5.2-027"2
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".
Madam President, I would like to start by expressing my thanks to the Members of your House who have had some very friendly things to say about our report, in particular to Mr Staes, Mr Lundgren, Mr Pomés Ruiz and Mr Bösch.
If I may come back to Vice-President Kallas, he has lamented the constant focus in the media on the subject of fraud. I can assure you that, together with the many of your Members who have spoken today – among them Mr Jørgensen, Mr Fazakas and Mr Titford – we are giving the Commission our wholehearted backing. It is not acceptable that the same old tune – ‘fraud, fraud, and more fraud’ – should be playing all the time; it is unjustified, it is damaging, and it is something we can do without. We do have rules.
Let me now return to the second aspect, that being the recommendation from the British House of Lords, on which Mr Kallas believes we should act. We have a system. Our report cannot confirm that fraud has been committed; that is for judges, rather than the Court of Auditors, to determine. We will, though, look carefully at the report from the House of Lords, which reached us only around yesterday lunchtime. I myself had a hand in an agreement we reached with the Commission, according to which, if we suspect that fraud is in play, the matter is passed on to OLAF. As I have already said, the procedures are subject to rules.
I can wholeheartedly endorse what Mr Garriga Polledo said; collaboration with our sister authorities is vitally important, and we will take with us to Warsaw your best wishes, for which we are grateful.
Mr Mulder asked why it is that the accounts have once more not been approved without qualification, and the answer to that is quite straightforward. It is that the transactions to which the accounts refer are still, to a large degree, not subject to appropriate risk management. Only as and when they are will it be possible to give a positive Statement of Assurance. Here, too, though, the incidence of errors would only result in the media once more putting the spotlight on fraud.
I am much obliged to Mr Staes for pointing out that a positive Statement of Assurance would be one result of improvements in the internal auditing systems, and for citing a number of examples; I can do no other than endorse what he said. I expressed myself very forthrightly before Ecofin, and the British House of Lords has highlighted a number of problems, among them countersignature and the blacklist. We received their report yesterday and must first examine it very closely.
I will respond to Mr Mote’s comments by saying our concern today is with the Statement of Assurance, although the great importance of the matters to which he alluded is not in doubt, and I am quite happy to continue with him the dialogue on which we have already embarked.
I have now answered, in essence, most of the questions put to me."@en1
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