Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-10-Speech-4-021-000"
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"en.20120510.9.4-021-000"2
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"Madam President, I am honoured to be the first President of the European Court of Auditors to be invited to address Parliament at this stage in the discharge procedure.
The discharge procedure is essential for European Union public accountability. It helps provide citizens with assurance as to what European funds were spent on, whether they were used correctly, and what was achieved with them. The primary responsibility for answering these questions lies with those responsible for managing European funds: the Commission and the relevant national authorities. They need to put in place systems capable of doing so.
The Court’s role is to provide independent assessments of the quality of their financial management and reporting systems. For the financial year 2010, the Court concluded that the European Union accounts prepared by the Commission do provide a reliable picture of what European Union funds were spent on. We noted, however, that the Commission does not yet provide a complete and reliable set of information on whether European Union funds have been correctly raised and spent.
On the basis of our own audit testing, the Court concluded that revenue and commitments underlying the European Union accounts were legal and regular in all material respects. In contrast to this, payments underlying these accounts were affected by material error with an estimated error rate of 3.7% overall. As in previous years, the area most prone to error was cohesion. We also concluded that systems were only partly effective overall and that there continued to be risks in the other areas of expenditure, which need to be managed and disclosed.
The Court recommended that due account should be taken of these risks when revising the legislative instrument for the next programming period. In particular, the Court stressed that reforms should focus on both reducing errors and improving the results we achieve with the funds of the European Union.
It is also important to ensure there is adequate provision for transparency. The Commission’s reporting on results achieved needs to be improved. In particular, we emphasised the need to set smart objectives and milestones for the new programming period. This is a point we also stressed in our recent opinions on the new legislative proposals governing the main areas of expenditure for the period 2014 to 2020.
In the discharge decision on the 2009 financial year, this Parliament invited the Court to present an opinion on the evaluation report required by the Lisbon Treaty. This report was delivered in February this year by the Commission and we will issue an opinion shortly. The Court believes that this first evaluation report represents an initial step in the right direction and provides Parliament, the Council and the Commission with an opportunity to discuss and agree how it can be made useful to the discharge authority as an instrument for European Union transparency and accountability.
The Court believes that an effective discharge procedure is essential for the European Union’s accountability and we are fully committed to working with Parliament and the other partners in this process to achieve that goal each year."@en1
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