Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-20-Speech-4-021"
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"en.20081120.3.4-021"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to take my turn in thanking the Court of Auditors for its excellent work. There have been a number of Members who, at this very moment, have rebelled against the general use of European funds.
I would like to say that I hope that, when they report our debates and the results of the work of the Court of Auditors, the media will not do what they usually do and talk about the trains which arrived late and say nothing about the trains which arrived on time, because most of the budget of the European Union has been spent advisedly. We must not confuse the wood with the trees.
Having said which, we have noted that the trend in this report by the Court of Auditors has been one of improvement. That is very good news. You also said that there are millions of beneficiaries, which alone illustrates the difficulty and scope of the task.
For my part, I wish to underline two responsibilities. I do not wish to point the finger of accusation at any specific organisation. I simply wish to say that if, in future, we want to do better, those with material responsibility in the matter need to act.
As I see it, there are two categories of people responsible. There is the Commission – and the Court of Auditors has just told us, having said that there are several million beneficiaries, that the first thing to be done upstream is to simplify the rules. We therefore expect, before talking about controls, before talking about a declaration, that things will indeed be simplified upstream for these beneficiaries – especially associations, individuals and so forth.
The second category of people responsible is, of course, the Member States. I and my colleagues in the Committee on Regional Development shall not stop pointing to the responsibility of the Member States under the Structural Funds. It is they who often add to the administrative complexity and, instead of acting as councils, they complicate matters and sit in judgment.
Therefore, over and above this Court of Auditors report, we really expect each of the Member States to facilitate access to European funds and, of course, to introduce more adequate controls over coming years."@en1
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