Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-04-Speech-2-055"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000704.2.2-055"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Stauner, my colleague and good friend, for her report. Sometimes we seem to forget that we are dealing with the discharge in respect of 1998. I have carefully read the Court of Auditors' report on the accounts for that year, particularly in relation to agriculture and the Structural Funds. I have come to the conclusion, having had a lot of experience in Parliament and with European affairs, that things have been steadily improving and that 1998 was one of the best performances we had.
The difficulties which occurred – a 4% possible error in the area of agriculture and a little more in the area of Structural Funds – did not result from the failure of the European Commission to dispense those funds in an efficient way, but from a failure – and it was a small failure – to control the Member States and the European governments and to ensure that the Member States and their administrations had done the job in the way it should have been done.
That is my first point. The second point is in relation to Fléchard. I do not think it is reasonable to inform the people of Europe that there was a loss of EUR 14 million to the European budget arising out of this case. To say this is to use a sort of accountancy jargon that puts the whole issue beyond the understanding of the ordinary European citizen. The truth is that in the Fléchard case, Fléchard was suspected of fraud, the Irish government fined and punished them to the extent of EUR 17 million. Fléchard took the Irish government to court and won an injunction preventing the Irish government from taking the EUR 17 million. The European Commission intervened at that point and proposed a settlement.
The worst thing you can say about that settlement is that it was made on a legal basis which was not in effect when the crime was committed, but was in effect while the case was still open. It seems to me that equating that with a loss of EUR 14 million is a gross exaggeration.
Finally, the lesson to be learned from this is that in the future we in Parliament have to cooperate with the European Commission to ensure that national governments do not, as in the past, interfere in their responsibilities, and that when the Commission takes national governments to task, it can rely on our support."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples