Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-016"
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"en.20001115.1.3-016"2
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"Madam President, I am grateful too that the Council have come back because I have got something to say to them as well.
Can I first of all thank Mr Karlsson because cooperation with the Committee on Budgetary Control this year has been much better than in previous years. Your work is crucial to our job because you are the experts and we then sort out the political problems.
We must not forget that this report refers to the 1999 budget, the year when there was the forced resignation of the Commission, so it is clearly too early to judge yet. Next year will be the beginning of the real test as to whether the Commission's reform has started to bite at all.
It is interesting to note that a key part of the Commission's reform is the whole question of who takes responsibility. Where does the buck stop? Who is responsible? We should today be assessing how the Commission and the Member States spend the money rather than assessing the work of the Court of Auditors. But I find that the work of the Court of Auditors has not been done sufficiently well to help us to do our job.
Let us not forget, and I hope the Council once again is listening, that 80% of the money is spent in the Member States. The Court, as in other years, has failed to point out exactly where those failures occurred. We have asked time and time again for a 'sinners list'. We want to know where the problems lie, in which Member States, in which areas. We even want to know about good practice. You will note from one part of the report that two Member States have been exemplary in terms of VAT collection but how are other Member States supposed to copy these Member States if they do not know who they are.
We need names. If you the Court will not do your job of naming and shaming, then we will have to do it for you. But your legitimacy as an auditing body will be questioned, and some might even suggest that some members of the Court are keen to protect the interests of Member States that nominated them. Will you make a commitment to do this in future, Mr Karlsson, because a lack of clear information in the report makes it very difficult for us to put pressure in the right areas on the worst offenders.
I call on you also to publish a league table of those countries which have the worst record of maladministration in the EU and in what areas. Europe's taxpayers deserve to know where the money is going. Without the facts we are fighting fraud with one hand tied behind our back.
Of course, there are no magic solutions to improving financial control in the Commission. The whole process will take time. We have a lot of vested interests to challenge but we will be watching next year's report for concrete evidence that the measures the Commission has put in place since its investiture have had a real impact in stamping out financial mismanagement."@en1
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