Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-24-Speech-2-015"
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"en.20070424.4.2-015"2
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".
Mr President, the annual approval of the accounts covers every account and partial account for every EU institution. A great deal of work takes place in terms of sifting through the Court of Auditors’ reports. The Commission has actively contributed to enlightening us, and the secretariat of the Committee on Budgetary Control has worked very hard to make it possible for the Members of this House to evaluate the content of the accounts.
There is, once again, scope this year to lament the fact that the Court of Auditors has been unable to provide an unqualified opinion. The view that the conditions under which the EU works make it almost impossible for the Court of Auditors to provide an unqualified opinion of that nature is beginning to gain currency. This comes back, to a large degree, to the fact that around 80% of EU resources are transferred back to the Member States and are administered there, which means that the chances of putting together an overall picture are highly variable, given the many forms and inconsistent quality of the administration at national level.
If we are to avoid the problems that arise in connection with the correct administration of EU resources, it is hardly enough just to require greater supervision. We have to ask ourselves whether the present legislation on aid both in the area of agriculture and in relation to the structural funds should be completely overhauled. The former Commissioner from the Netherlands, Mr Bolkestein, has recently pointed out that 85% of EU spending could beneficially be cut. It is clearly, in reality, pointless for the EU 15 countries to give money to each other. That is like making social security payments from the middle class to the middle class in an individual country. The old Member States could organise the aid necessary for their development far better by using their own funds. The situation whereby other countries, on the strength of EU legislation, have to pay for things that the country in question does not wish to pay for itself, or could pay for by itself, is a pretext for doing nothing. Those who do not carry out reforms receive help from those who have carried out reforms and thus need not do anything themselves. As former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson said, ‘It cannot be right that we, who are willing to demand high taxes from our citizens, have to give money to countries that do not wish to tax their own citizens.’ My country, for example, charges 200% tax on private cars in order, amongst other things, to be able to send a lot of money to countries where I can see many more new cars than in Copenhagen – cars on which not a cent of duty has been paid. Clearly, that does not seem sensible.
My group, as far as most Members are concerned, wishes to vote in favour of granting discharge. Personally, I have some reservations as it is my opinion that certain areas of the management of expenditure in the Commission and in certain committees do not meet normal standards. I would very much like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Budgetary Control for the very large amount of work it has done and also to thank my colleagues on the committee for their numerous significant observations in this debate and for the constructive cooperation that prevails, overall, within the committee."@en1
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