Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-007"
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"en.20001115.1.3-007"2
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"Madam President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Members of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission is heading in the right direction, but it still has a long way to go. That is the European Court of Auditors' message to the Commission. This message became very clear in your speech just now, Mr Karlsson. The Court of Auditors quite rightly applies very high standards to the way tax-payers' money is used, and the Commission is following these high standards in its own financial management reform.
The Court of Auditors is increasingly making use of special reports. I would like to welcome this trend on behalf of the Commission, as these special reports are very topical and can therefore also be valuable in making up-to-the-minute decisions. Please note I said "can be". Because it is often not enough for the Commission to simply listen to what the Court of Auditors has to say, because the Council and Parliament are also involved. By way of a specific example, I have in mind the special report that has just been published on the market organisation for sugar. The Commission has suggested that the present COM should only be extended by two years, after which it will be thoroughly revised. Unfortunately, the Council believes that this is too early, and that it should be extended for longer. I think this goes to show that the comments the Court of Auditors makes on the basis of an examination of historical facts and the valuable hints it can give about how to proceed in future also subsequently need to be debated with the Council.
Of course, up-to-the-minute conclusions need to be drawn from up-to-the-minute audit reports. That applied to food aid for Russia, for example, which the Court audited in one report. When it became apparent at the end of last year that the original humanitarian aid objectives could not be achieved without disproportionate expenditure on control and monitoring measures, the Commission decided to terminate this action although funds were still available.
In this connection I would also like to briefly mention that foreign policy aid as a whole is an important area of the Commission's work, both as regards institutional reform of this entire area and also given that the high historical liabilities in this sphere need to be worked through more quickly and to a greater extent than in the past. The Commission has presented a paper on this to the Committee on Budgets.
The Commission is on the right path with its reforms. However, not only are we heading in the right direction, we have also already covered a significant part of the ground. One of the milestones we have already passed is the 2001 budget, which the Commission has, for the first time, presented using activity-based budgeting. Within the "Peer Group", the Commission has reordered its priorities and has accordingly reorganised its personnel allocation. The Commission has strengthened the audit capacity of the individual Directorates-General. It has also set up an internal audit service which will monitor the control systems in individual departments as well as creating a central financial service which all the Directorates-General can use, for instance when they are drawing up contracts or when they need help in implementing the provisions of the Financial Regulation.
But we are now coming to a difficult stretch, where we need the support of the European Parliament, the Council and also the Court of Auditors. This applies, for example, to the amendment of the disciplinary procedure, but it also applies in particular to the revision of the Financial Regulation. Mr President, you said that much of the reform is still only on paper. Of course, it is now a matter of implementing it. For example, the Court of Auditors has committed itself to giving its opinion on the proposal for the revision of the Financial Regulation as quickly as possible, and I am very grateful for that. I hope that Parliament and the Council will be infected by the Court of Auditors' ambitious approach, so that this milestone for reform will very soon not just be a proposal on paper but legislation in force for improving budgetary management.
The Court of Auditors is giving the Commission's reform a fair wind. That is to be welcomed and I would like to thank you most sincerely, Mr Karlsson, and also the Members of the Court of Auditors and its officials, for supporting the reform of the Commission in your report.
In its annual report for 1999, the Court concluded that too many errors had occurred in implementing the budget to give a positive statement of assurance. On the other hand, the Commission's accounting procedures are declared to be reliable, and the legality and regularity of the revenue side of the budget, of commitment appropriations and of staff expenditure are confirmed.
However, during the debate and throughout the whole discharge process we will probably focus on implementation of the budget, that is on the payment and reconciliation of appropriations. The Court has once again stressed that over 80% of European budget resources are administered by the Member States. If I pick that point up here it is by no means because the Commission wants to hide behind the Member States when it comes to accepting political responsibility. By no means – the European Commission bears political responsibility for budgetary implementation in accordance with the EC Treaty. If the Member States, however, for their part, use this treaty provision as a kind of protective shield, and they hide behind it instead of taking the necessary measures, than that simply is not acceptable either.
I certainly do not want to make sweeping generalisations. For example, joint measures have been taken to improve controls as regards financial protocols relating to the Structural Funds and financial corrections in the case of agricultural expenditure. But I find it really amazing that some Member States can refuse to accept financial responsibility, for example, in the area of customs duties, when their own authorities have made mistakes which mean that customs duties cannot be entered and they then refuse to make good this shortfall in revenue, so that instead all the Member States have to accept joint responsibility for this revenue shortfall. This means that conscientious Member States are financially penalised and less conscientious ones are financially rewarded. Such a distorted system of initiatives should be enough to make any finance minister's stomach turn, but at present it seems that only the Commission finds it disturbing.
The Court of Auditors also makes it clear in its report that the errors identified by the Court do not amount to fraud, nor are they detrimental to the budget. I am not mentioning this with a view to exoneration, but rather to clarify matters. It is, of course, emphasised that it is the European Commission's job both to avoid formal errors and to combat fraud, especially as people keep asking where the dividing lines lie and where things blend together.
The Commission therefore attributes the highest priority to imposing tighter controls so as to protect the European tax-payer and the EU budget. The recently published annual report on protecting the financial interests of the Community and the annual report on fraud prevention demonstrate this. OLAF was set up in 1999. New measures have been taken to prevent fraud in procurement, which is a very important area. Legislation has now been proposed to prevent money laundering and to combat counterfeiting of the euro. Cooperation agreements with third countries and, in particular, with candidate countries have been framed more strictly so that anti-fraud measures do not stop at the EU's borders. And last but not least, the complaint the Commission has brought against the tobacco companies in the American courts on the grounds of alleged involvement in cigarette smuggling has made it clear that when it comes to fighting fraud, the Commission is not afraid of taking on the giants. In view of the timing of this, I would also like to mention in this connection that we have presented a proposal for the Nice Intergovernmental Conference to amend the EC Treaty to allow a European Public Prosecutor's Office to be created to prosecute fraud detrimental to the Community's financial interests. I very much hope that this proposal to the Nice Intergovernmental Conference will not just be shelved or swept under the carpet, but that it will be given serious attention.
However, in a spirit of "we want our money back", it is, of course, also a question of making financial corrections and securing recovery of overpayments here today. Mr President of the Court of Auditors, I for one warmly welcome the fact that you have announced your intention to prepare a special report, to carry out a special audit on this.
Every year, about EUR 600 million of financial corrections are made in relation to the common agricultural policy and, for example, about 2% of areas eligible for aid are not paid any subsidies as a sanction against incorrect area information frequently being given. This is a problem area that the Court of Auditors also very clearly indicated in its annual report for 1999."@en1
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