Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-29-Speech-4-024"
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"en.20071129.3.4-024"2
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"Mr President, Mr Weber, ladies and gentlemen, reports from audit offices are always interesting and important. That applies especially to Europe, for the prudent and efficient use of European funds is always the subject of particularly close public attention.
The report rightly focuses most sharply on the use of funds in the Member States. A great deal certainly remains to be done there with regard to the structural funds in particular. This, however, should not take our eyes off the expenditure practice of our own institutions, especially the Commission and the Council. It is in the realm of directly managed expenditure that there is most room for improvement on the part of the Commission. The Commission, in short, is not only the guardian of the treaties; it must also be a paragon of sound financial management. When I look at the shift in agricultural policy, beginning with subsidies and extending to the promotion of landscape conservation, I do wonder whether the aim here is perhaps to subsidise equestrian-sports clubs and golf clubs. Such an aim is out of tune with the real purpose of agricultural support.
Buildings policy continues to give the Court of Auditors plenty to think about, whether it be the extension to the seat of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg or the Council and Parliament buildings in Brussels. The Court of Justice rightly pursues a consistent approach of exposing uncomfortable truths, particularly in cases where tendering procedures have been flawed or non-existent. It surely cannot be right that the Court of Justice has to foot the bill but is not involved in formulating the contract and putting it out to tender.
Let me take this opportunity in passing to remind the Commission of its answer to my written question of 2 August on this matter. It simply creates a bad general impression if the local authority of every little municipality in the EU has to issue an EU-wide call for tenders before it can award any contract worth more than EUR 200 000, whereas the European institutions themselves can casually dispense with tendering procedures for contracts worth millions. Our citizens cannot understand that.
I would also like to address the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, for each of them must also present the report we have requested. May I also ask the Council to ensure that increases in operational expenditure on the common foreign and security policy are not slipped in under the heading of administrative expenditure."@en1
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