Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-18-Speech-1-119"
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"en.20080218.22.1-119"2
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"Mr President, like the other speakers, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on what is a very important report.
I am prompted to take part in this debate because of the focus on agriculture. Other speakers have said that there has been an improvement in terms of the controls and inspections, particularly when it comes to money given to farmers, and there is now the transparency initiative to publish what farmers are getting.
One of the difficulties for those in the farming community is that they believe very often they are guilty until proven innocent. Obviously, none of us can or will condone fraud, and because there is fraud in the EU budget there is a very poor public perception of the European Union and how it accounts for the money collected. If the public understood the European budget better, they might clamour a little louder for us to be harder on fraud.
It is important to stress the difference between fraud and irregularities, of which many are discovered, because they are very different. We cannot punish ourselves for irregularities, but we should punish fraud against the Community budget. This is an issue involving the Member States – as the last speaker said – because all the Member States signed up to the European Union in good faith and have pooled resources in certain policies, and it is up to us to ensure that the money we have pooled is well spent and that there is no fraud against the public purse.
Member States which are light on fraud, and take a light-touch approach, need to be punished in some way, but it is very important that Member States that perform well in this area are not penalised. It is therefore important for the Commission to take action at Member State level.
I shall finish by reiterating the very important point that, on the farming side, there is now a very strong feeling among those who farm that they are sometimes guilty until proven innocent. That is unacceptable, and we therefore need to be careful to get the balance right."@en1
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