Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-15-Speech-2-628-000"
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"en.20111115.33.2-628-000"2
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"Mr President, President Caldeira, honourable Members of the Parliament and of the Court of Auditors, the key messages outlined by President Caldeira demonstrate that over the years, we have made progress in improving the financial management of the EU budget.
Another issue raised in the Court’s report refers to the financial engineering instruments. Last week, several members of the Committee on Budgetary Control expressed concerns regarding the management of these instruments and their inherent risks at Member State level.
In the meantime, the problems identified by the Court of Auditors have been addressed. The necessary adjustments have been made in due time before the closure of the 2010 accounts. Moreover, the Commission has already proposed amending the current legal basis to obtain systematically the information needed from the national authorities.
As regards the effectiveness of the systems, it is worth noting that the Court found that more than 90% of the errors are identified outside the Commission at the level of beneficiaries. This is of particular importance when we know that 80% of the budget is spent under shared management. That said, the Commission agrees with the Court that the definition of objectives and indicators and the monitoring of progress and results need further improvement.
Therefore, identification of objectives, targets, milestones and key performance indicators are now systematically included in all our legislative proposals for the next financial period. The Commission will issue the very first evaluation report based on Article 318 of the Treaty by the end of this year.
Finally, let me say a few words on the various European financial assistance mechanisms. The Commission agrees that the principles of transparency, accountability and public audit should be respected when public funds are at stake. Today, the Court of Auditors is entitled to audit the balance of payments facility and the European financial stabilisation mechanisms to the extent that they are guaranteed by the EU budget, and Note 9 to the Union’s accounts gives adequate information on the existing lending operations.
I am pleased that the European Court of Auditors has confirmed that the Commission is on the right track. Despite these rather good results, there remains ample room for improvement, and the Commission takes full responsibility for addressing these areas together with the other financial actors involved, in particular, the Member States.
Several new measures included in our proposals for the next generation of EU spending programmes are inspired by the Court and the Discharge Authority’s recommendations. Whether these measures will become EU law depends now on the colegislators – the Council and this Assembly. The Commission will facilitate the negotiations and hopes these necessary improvements will be supported.
For 2010, the accounts are clean; all commitments and revenues as well.
As regards payments, the overall level of quantifiable errors found by the Court is 3.7%. For internal policies, external action and administration, the level of quantifiable errors is below the materiality threshold of 2%.
Agriculture is fairly stable with a 2.3% level of quantifiable errors. Moreover, the Court says that for 2010, direct aid – about EUR 400 billion paid to millions of farmers – is free from material error.
But some other policy errors and, in particular, cohesion, still deserve serious efforts. Implementation of the EU budget in the areas where management is shared with the Member States is a complex issue, and reducing errors there remains our main challenge and priority. In 2010, the majority of the errors were concentrated on seven operational programmes in three Member States. However, the analysis of the errors in cohesion policy presented with the cohesion package last month shows that from 2006 until 2009, more Member States contributed to the level of errors, including so-called net payers.
The Commission considers that it is not primarily the design of the programmes that is wrong, but the way they are implemented on the spot. As President Caldeira said, in the majority of cases, the Member States’ authorities had sufficient information to have detected and corrected the errors prior to certifying the expenditure to the Commission.
This is unacceptable. It reflects a lack of responsibility by the authorities involved despite their enhanced obligations under shared management as required by the Treaty. The Commission has confronted the Member States concerned with those findings. We expect to receive quick and appropriate responses from them in this regard.
The Commission will, of course, continue to act preventively, providing guidance, assistance and advice to Member States’ authorities, but it will also continue to strictly apply corrective measures such as interruptions and suspensions of payments and financial corrections.
For the next financial period, the Commission has proposed the definite reduction of the financial allocation to Member States that do not address effectively the weaknesses in their systems."@en1
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