Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-05-10-Speech-2-035-000"
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"en.20110510.4.2-035-000"2
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"Madam President, I believe it is madness for this European Parliament to approve the 2009 EU budget when financial irregularities or possible fraud affect between 2% and more than 5% of the total. These are not figures made up by me to suit party-political propaganda, but estimates from the European Court of Auditors. The level of irregularities for 2009 is abnormally high and equates to half of the UK’s contribution for the EU for this year, roughly EUR 6.3 billion. This situation would simply not be tolerated in any company or organisation: heads would roll.
This House is set to approve discharge for 27 EU agencies – expensive and needless quangos – while the European Court of Auditors has launched a full-scale investigation into their accounts for 2009. This should ring alarm bells ahead of the vote. I repeat, in the strongest possible terms, that it is nothing short of madness to sign off EUR 523 million of – let us remember – taxpayers’ money, while the official auditing arm of the EU is investigating possible fraud and financial mismanagement at these agencies. Medicines Agency and CEPOL postponement is piecemeal.
Year after year we hear the European Commission blame the Member States for the irregularities, yet it does absolutely nothing about it when it has the power to block funding. Instead it is proposing to move from a zero tolerance strategy to one of tolerable risk when it comes to EU expenditure fraud. To make matters worse, the Commission and Parliament are demanding increases in the budget for the coming years. Most of these increases coincide with the areas with the highest level of irregularities. It will be an absolute disgrace, and an affront to taxpayers, if this House grants discharge for the 2009 accounts. The only conclusion to be drawn from a vote in favour of discharge is that this House and its Members openly endorse financial mismanagement or worse.
I call on the British Prime Minister to reduce the UK’s contribution to the EU in line with the amount of the irregularities if the European Parliament fails to act in the interests of the British taxpayer."@en1
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