Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-20-Speech-4-027"
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"en.20081120.3.4-027"2
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"Mr President, Mr President of the European Court of Auditors, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, it has now become a tradition that once again no statement of assurance can be issued about the relationship between spending at a European level and administration at a national level. I can remember discussions with the previous President of the Court of Auditors, Professor Friedmann, who once said to me that, because of the structures, it was not possible to give a statement of assurance. For this reason, we should consider how this instrument can be brought to life with the aim of issuing a statement of assurance, if this is justified.
It is important to make distinctions between a few different issues in this respect. Firstly, a budget that consists of around 95% subsidies is much more susceptible to fraud than a national, regional or local authority budget. This subsidy budget is largely managed by the Member States, which have demanded a great deal more independence from us in the new financing period, because they complained during the last funding period that there was too much central control. Of course, this also means that the responsibility for the budget funds must be transferred to a regional and national level.
The third area is one that I just want to touch on. We must learn to distinguish between fraud and wastefulness. These are things which are often lumped together. It also annoys me when projects are funded with EU money which are not absolutely necessary. However, this is not fraud, but wastefulness. For this reason, those with responsibility for the projects, in particular in the area of structural operations, namely the Member States, should also take responsibility for ensuring that money is not wasted and that only those projects are subsidised which provide genuine added value for the region. Therefore, we should also consider moving parts of structural operations onto interest-free loans. If Member States have to pay back the money, they will only fund the projects that they really need."@en1
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