Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-24-Speech-2-017"
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"en.20070424.4.2-017"2
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".
Mr President, I am grateful for the quality and balance of the report before us today. For this I would like to thank the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Committee’s previous chairman, Mr Fazakas, its current chairman, Mr Bösch, and, of course, the rapporteur, Mr Garriga Polledo.
I would also recall that the Commission on a routine basis claws back EU farm money unduly spent by Member States, returning the funds to the Community budget in the ‘clearance of accounts’ procedure.
Under the latest decision taken last week, a total of EUR 285.3 million is being recovered from 14 Member States for reasons relating in particular to insufficiencies in controls as well as the non-respect of payment deadlines by Member States.
Second, in the area of structural action, on 4 April 2007, the Commission suspended payments to ERDF programmes in five of the nine regions of England, plus one programme in a sixth. If no, or insufficient, action is taken, a flat-rate correction ranging from 5 to 10 % or 25 % of the amounts paid out and specific to each programme will be decided by the Commission to address the infringement of the rules and the extent and financial implications of the remaining shortcomings.
Suspensions and reservations often lead to the necessary improvements. In 2005, for example, DG Regio had reservations on the adequacy of control systems in Spain. In 2006, the DG audited that again and found that progress had made it unnecessary to repeat the reserve.
Likewise, for the European Social Fund, in early 2006 the Commission signalled its reservations on the systems in place in the United Kingdom. Improvements were made by the UK and the reserve could be lifted.
These examples show that the Commission can and does interrupt payments. The basis for decisions like these must be well justified and explained in a detailed manner. We have therefore made great efforts again this year to improve the quality of the annual activity reports of Commission directorates-general.
The Court was rather critical of Commission controls in the research area. This is direct management by the Commission and we have given this issue the highest priority. An ex-post audit strategy is now in place across the research family of DGs for audits on the sixth Framework Programme (FP6). This is a robust strategy and is accompanied by a significant increase in the percentage of the research budget covered by ex-post audits. There will be 300 audits for FP6 in 2007, compared with 45 carried out in 2006.
Reflecting the priority given to this, the Commission is reallocating a significant number of staff to audit tasks and undertaking the necessary additional recruitment.
Furthermore, serious consideration is being given to the gradual introduction of lump sums in certain specific areas of the framework programme.
Let me say a few words on agencies. The Commission has noted the increasing concern in Parliament over regulatory agencies. We already provide a lot of support to the agencies and I think expectations and responsibilities must be clarified, in particular before new agencies are created.
Mr Garriga Polledo’s report proposes that Parliament grant the Commission discharge for its implementation of the budget and agree on the clearance of accounts. The Commission is pleased to take note of this. I wish to comment on why I think it is deserved.
We will therefore push for immediate progress on the proposed interinstitutional agreement. The Council has indicated its willingness to continue discussions on this. Its adoption would really help to address recommendations of Parliament on issues such as a systemic and regular evaluation and cost-benefit studies of the agencies and the harmonisation of their annual reporting.
The Commission remains accountable to the budgetary authority in implementing the budget. We do so by informing you openly and honestly about our strengths and weaknesses. We are grateful for your fair recognition of both.
To begin with, your recommendations will be followed up. In fact, we have done much already, including the following:
We are implementing the revised Financial Regulation, which implies, among other things, enforcing the agreed provisions requiring Member States to produce ‘an annual summary at the appropriate national level of available audits and declarations’.
We will continue to report progress on our action plan towards an integrated internal control framework, as you ask in paragraph 56. In fact, I will present the progress report to the Committee on Budgetary Control next week.
We have improved, can improve and will improve the accounts. For the 2006 accounts, we have already provided better information on recoveries and financial corrections. This means that you can count on our accounts’ reliability.
We are pursuing the European Transparency Initiative. With Parliament’s support progress on this file is being made every day.
In this year’s report, Parliament ‘assures the Commission of its full support in the rigorous application of the legislation on suspension of payments to Member States’. When I appeared before the Committee on Budgetary Control on 1 March to discuss the draft Garriga Polledo report, I said that I would propose to my colleagues in the Commission a very careful analysis of the issues leading to reserves in the declarations of the directors-general this year and, depending on the importance of the problems and the risk identified, suspend payments or apply financial corrections. We had serious discussions for more than two hours, and the outcome was a very strong affirmation of the determination of the College to take the necessary steps.
Today I would like to highlight several concrete decisions taken. First, as regards the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) in Greece and agricultural subsidies, a very clear action plan has now been agreed with Greece in order to ensure proper implementation of the IACS in that country. The action plan lays down unambiguous deadlines for action to be taken. As Commissioner Fischer Boel stated plainly during the discharge hearing in the Committee on Budgetary Control last November, the Commission will suspend payments to Greece for direct aid if the agreed action plan and the deadlines are not respected by the Greek authorities. The first important report from the Greek authorities is due on 15 May."@en1
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