Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-11-Speech-4-036"
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"en.20101111.3.4-036"2
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"Madam President, the debate today demonstrates that further progress was achieved in 2009 in the management of the European budget. The clear opinion of the Court on the accounts and the lowest error rate ever for the whole budget, as disclosed by our external auditor, confirm that the Commission took the right decisions and proposed adequate measures to improve the performance of the programmes under the current financial period.
However, the Court also highlights the areas where further progress is needed by all financial actors. I refer, of course, to the Commission, and also to financial actors in the Member States whose obligations and responsibilities under shared management have been clearly reinforced under the new Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Many of you talked here about the application of sanctions to the Member States, and I have to say that the Commission applies sanctions very rigorously. Just now, we are in the process of the suspension or interruption of 40 cohesion programmes amounting to EUR 1.75 billion. That is a huge amount, and what is more important is that the number of actions in 2010 almost doubled compared with the number of actions in 2009. Just last Friday, we also made a decision to call back unduly spent money in agriculture to an amount of more than EUR 578 million; so we really apply these sanctions rigorously and we intend to do so in the future. You can also see from the report by the Court of Auditors that the level of recoveries and financial corrections has increased significantly over the years, amounting in 2009 to EUR 3.3 billion. That is also a very significant amount, and our intention is to continue this policy and apply sanctions very rigorously when this is needed.
The Court’s report, and the discharge procedures starting now, will be instrumental not only in addressing the weaknesses of the current programmes but also in drawing lessons for the next generation of programmes. The Court rightly pointed out the way forward, which is, of course, simplification and improvements in the procurement rules, because it is true that the vast majority of errors were made because of the violation of eligibility criteria or of procurement rules. We have to learn lessons from this, and the Commission is ready to do so. It will follow up on the Court’s recommendations and is looking forward to a fruitful discharge procedure."@en1
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