Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-22-Speech-2-023"
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"en.20080422.4.2-023"2
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"−
Mr President, I have been the rapporteur for these other institutions as they have been called, seven of them, in other words the Council, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the European Data Protection Supervisor and the European Ombudsman.
I have had no serious objections to anything I have looked at. It has been a matter of normal comments on what can and should be improved. There have been no revelations which could in any way call into question granting of discharge to any of these seven institutions.
Nevertheless, I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that granting discharge, exacting responsibility, is fundamental to democracy. I have no faith in this chamber’s way of handling this task, as I had precisely the same job of examining these seven institutions two years ago and then, ladies and gentlemen, discovered the most appalling things going on in the Committee of the Regions. I found that fraud of the most serious nature had been committed there. I obtained material which you were all able to read in the secret reading room.
There were three separate investigations into this: one by OLAF, our Anti-Fraud Office, one by the Court of Auditors, and the Committee of the Regions itself also conducted an internal investigation. They had dismissed their internal auditors. The list of complaints was endless.
I therefore naturally proposed that we should not grant discharge in those circumstances. I said this in the committee. The committee still voted to discharge. I said the same thing here in Parliament two years ago, and you voted to discharge by a large majority.
This shows that when you should be voting to discharge here today on my recommendation, you are not doing so because I say so but purely out of habit. This assembly is not accepting its responsibility. It is thinking more of the EU’s reputation. You are thinking more about deceiving the citizens, the voters. They must not be allowed to know what is going on. Therefore, it is with considerable sadness that I say ‘yes, this time these other institutions can be granted discharge’. I can do so with a clear conscience. Most of you cannot."@en1
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