Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-04-21-Speech-3-041"
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"en.20100421.3.3-041"2
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"Mr President, I am a great fan of the British rock band Genesis. They have a fantastic track called ‘Dance on a Volcano’, and this track came to mind this week, which has been rather dominated by volcanic ash. Not that the song made me want to go dancing in Iceland; instead, it came to mind in connection with this morning’s debate on the substantiation of expenditure in 2008, another year for which the European Court of Auditors was unable to give its approval. It is there that I see the parallel with dancing on a volcano; a volcano filled not with lava or ash but with distrust. Europe is subject to intense pressure of all kinds, such as pressure on the euro and the pressure of the conflict between EU and national perspectives. This is already enough to bring this metaphorical volcano to a head, so we can do without poor financial accountability and public distrust causing the volcano to erupt.
How can this be prevented? To my mind, there is only one way, and that is through transparency; optimum transparency in all the institutions. Transparency within the Council – and thus the Member States – precisely because this is the main source of the irregularities detected each year. Incidentally, I am pleased that the Council is still here. I would also call on the Member States to establish transparency in their expenditure of European funds at long last by giving a public account of this expenditure on an annual basis. I am at a loss to understand why they persist in obstructing this. I am convinced that, if the Member States were to handle their own money the same way, their citizens would consider this unacceptable.
Fair is fair, however, and greater transparency is also needed in our own Parliament. Mr Staes has rightly drawn up a very critical report and, after the many improvements seen in recent years, it is now time to throw open the windows once and for all and show the European public by means of this transparency that we are able to handle their money responsibly, as that is what this is all about.
My final point concerns mutual relations between the Council and Parliament. Some 40 years ago, a gentlemen’s agreement was deemed necessary to enable the two parties to work in relative peace and quiet rather than fighting in the gutter. The agreement proved very useful back then, but it would be fair to say that it no longer works, as we are now fighting in the gutter. As I see it, however, a more important point is that the Council and Parliament are now strong, mature institutions and, as such, should be able to monitor each other in a mature way even without a gentlemen’s agreement. I should like to ask the Council, now it is here, whether it can give its response to this, and whether it agrees that it is possible for the two institutions to monitor each other effectively without a gentlemen’s agreement.
With mutual openness instead of a gentlemen’s agreement, the Council and Parliament can dance together in harmony without fear of the ground giving way beneath their feet or of further public distrust leading to an eruption."@en1
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