Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-19-Speech-3-094"
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"en.20000119.4.3-094"2
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"Madam President, the Van Hulten report on the reforms aimed at remedying the Commission crisis follows the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts fairly closely. My Group gave its opinion on this on 13 September. However, the proposed reforms are not adequately put into perspective which means that the wealth of proposals for specific improvements, some good and some bad, rather mask the real operating problems of the European institutions.
In particular, the first report of the Committee of Independent Experts revealed cases of individual failure. It might therefore have been expected that the second report would analyse the channels of corruption permanently operating around the European institutions, as described by certain documents available when the report was written.
Yet this is not the case. Obviously it is better to propose reforms for the future rather than constantly examine the past. However, in this case, this toning down of the past is preventing a clear view being obtained of the breadth of the reforms needed. Many reforms are clearly required but what should primarily be challenged is the theory of the Commission’s independence. This is preventing people from realising that the Commission should simply be a service common to the Member States. It is also preventing the Member States from exercising proper control.
We must therefore fight against everything which may help to make the Commission into an uncontrollable fortress. In particular, the Council must be given back proper political control over the Commission. Cooperation in both directions between the Court of Auditors and the national courts must be reinforced in order to improve the controls in both the Member States and Brussels. The quasi-diplomatic privileges of the Commission must be removed as these hinder investigations. The European civil service must be opened up much more to specialist national officials on temporary secondment. Finally, as proposed by our Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, in an opinion which has been ignored, the possibility of financing interest groups, without prior authorisation, in part A of the budget must be completely reviewed. This currently allows the distribution of subsidies without any legal basis and encourages cronyism around the Commission."@en1
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