Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2016-04-27-Speech-1-121-000"
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"en.20160427.17.1-121-000"2
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"Madam President, like the previous speaker I would like to use all my time now and not come back at the end of the debate.
I wrote 33 reports for the decentralised agencies. This was a lot of work, and therefore I want to thank my staff – not only the S&D staff, but also the Budget Control Secretariat – for their help, plus the shadow rapporteurs worked with me very closely. At this point, I would like to make a general point about the discharge process and to thank all the rapporteurs for all the discharge reports, particularly the rapporteur for the general discharge – I think she produced a good and well balanced report, which I think will be supported by a majority of this House.
For the agencies, I would also like to thank the Commission and the Court of Auditors and all the agencies for working very closely with me. Overall, the agencies received pleasing reports from the Court of Auditors. I shadowed the agencies’ discharge last year, and I am pleased to report that there has been a great deal of progress since then. There were fewer comments from the Court and, importantly, there were no qualified opinions. This means the Court found no reason to call into question the reliability of the accounts, and the transactions underlying the accounts were also legal and were regular in all material respects.
I am also pleased to report that the agencies are well advanced in terms of the implementation of actions foreseen in the common approach agreed in 2012, reaching a 99% rate of completion of agency-specific actions. Also, 93% of agencies stated that they now share services with other agencies and institutions, and 75% of the agencies have cooperation agreements. I would therefore encourage all agencies to look at this further in order to make increased efficiency savings. Agencies now also put in place guidelines for inter-agency procurement procedures and for agencies’ participation in Commission-led procurement procedures, which again will, hopefully, lead to efficiencies.
Most agencies have already met the 5% required staff reductions. However, I know many agencies are concerned that they are also being asked to contribute 5% extra into a redeployment pool, and I think this is something which needs to be looked at. Over 80% of all agencies have anti-fraud strategies in place. More than 90% of agencies have policies in place on the publication of the CVs and declarations of interest of the management board members and also senior staff and in-house experts. So the picture is looking pretty good, but of course – as with all reports – there are some concerns and some areas which need to be improved. For example, since January 2014 four agencies have been in the same negotiation process with a host Member State about headquarters agreements. Some good progress has been made, but I would urge all Member States to conclude negotiations with their agencies in order that those headquarters agreements can be put in place as quickly as possible.
On carryovers, which is a topic that is raised most years, I am pleased to say that most of the carryovers were planned. However, a higher level of cancellations of carryovers from previous years was noted in some cases, which may indicate that the appropriations carried over were made on the basis of overestimated needs or were otherwise not justified. I am pleased, however, to note that most of the agencies concerned are putting in place measures to deal with this issue.
In some agencies there is still an issue over gender balance, particularly in senior management positions, and I have asked the agencies network to provide us, as the discharge authority, with a detailed report on steps being taken to address this problem. In addition to this, I would also ask Member States to pursue gender balance when they make appointments to board members for the agencies.
Lastly, I wanted to call on agencies to further strengthen their efforts to improve their communication policies, expand their visibility and raise awareness of their activities and achievements. All these agencies do a huge amount of good work for citizens right across the European Union, and they should publicise this work more than they have been doing in the past. That would raise awareness of what they do, but I also think it would be good for the individual agencies as well. The Budgetary Control Committee voted overwhelmingly to grant discharge for all the agencies. This was due to them all receiving an unqualified opinion from the Court of Auditors and because of the progress which they demonstrated in recent years. I therefore hope that tomorrow, when this House votes on the agencies’ discharge, we would once again grant discharge to all the agencies in my report."@en1
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