Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-09-Speech-2-032"
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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the year 2000, EUR 82 billion was spent via the European Budget, made up of hundreds of thousands of different cash movements – payments to researchers and research institutes, grants to students, premiums to farmers for cattle or for set-aside, food aid for refugees, payments for the provision of building materials in Kosovo or for the fight against Aids in Africa, subsidies for the extension of rail networks in the EU, for the building of business parks and so on. I could keep on adding to the list for a long time.
The Commission has, then, in part, gone over to subsidising these countries' budgets to a greater extent. On the one hand, this is right and proper, but, on the other, it does require new approaches to monitoring.
Let me again point out, with reference to the forwarding of information in the discharge procedure, that the Commission always immediately posts on the Internet evaluation reports on the various programmes and the different Budget items, and that the figures on the implementation of the current Budget are sent by electronic means to the Committee on Budgetary Control on a weekly basis. The Commission is convinced that the agreement with Parliament on the forwarding of confidential information has proved its value. I must reiterate, though, that both the Commission's and OLAF's reports are covered by the rules on data protection and the protection of the confidentiality of investigations.
The Commission has also, in response to a query from the Committee on Budgetary Control, produced a further breakdown of the reports from the Member States on errors and demands for repayment in connection with the Structural Funds. Tighter controls have meant that these have been notified in greater numbers, although the Member States are often not yet monitoring to the extent prescribed. Mr McCartin, you have made critical comments on this in your report. Your criticism is one that I share. It is though, very doubtful that those Member States with federal structures will be happy to be told, as is proposed in the report, that they must change the way their competences are allocated as regards the monitoring of European funds, as this is often enshrined in their constitutions. This really does raise some very serious issues.
One significant topic in discussions during this discharge procedure has been – and still is – the methodology on the basis of which the European Court of Auditors decides whether or not to grant a Statement of Assurance. The Commission welcomes the Court of Auditors' willingness to discuss proposals for a changed approach to the creation of indicators for financial management that are capable of being checked and compared over a period of time.
Both the report on the Commission's budget and Mrs Morgan's report demand that enquiries be made into the incidence of errors in each Directorate-General. The Court of Auditors has already made it clear that this is not in accordance with its present method of sampling, as it would require substantially more random samples than the Court of Auditors is able to carry out. I would, though, point out that the reform of the Commission saw the introduction of new monitoring standards and that the annual reports on the activities of the Directorates-General have to contain details of which standards have been complied with and how this has been done. We will be checking with the Court of Auditors what amounts can be derived from these reports and from the Directorate-General's statements for the purpose of establishing indicators that can then be compared over time.
Mr Staes, in your report on the discharge of the Director of the European Agency for the Reconstruction of Kosovo, you express your agreement with the Court of Auditors' favourable judgment. I have several reasons for picking up on this. One is that experience with the reconstruction agency has shown that decentralised responsibility, meaning more on-the-spot decisions, is the right way to go. Another is because press reports have, in part, given the impression that accusations of mismanagement in energy supply had already been substantiated. You have again made clear that this is not the case, but that the situation continues to be unsatisfactory, and have also shown how things stood in the year 2000, when they were absolutely desolate with regard both to this power station and also to the fact that – like everywhere else in the former Eastern bloc – electricity bills were not being paid. It is also of significance that the position with regard to ownership of the power station was unclear, which meant that it could not be privatised, and that it was of enormous importance in terms of safeguarding jobs. That, too, had to be taken into account in a very thorny and politically unstable situation, in which there will, of course, have to be further developments.
I am very glad that the Court of Auditors has thoroughly audited the Agency for the Reconstruction of Kosovo, and done so at a very early juncture. They were on the spot themselves. The overall result of the audit by the Court is a very positive one, which is significant in so far as this work in the Balkans, and the work in Kosovo, will, in the years to come, be of great importance for policy not only on foreign affairs, but also specifically on the Budget.
I would like to touch briefly on the observation and demand you made concerning the agricultural sector, especially on agricultural export refunds. Even while the discharge procedure was running its course, it was possible for some understanding on several points to be reached between the committee and my fellow-Commissioner Mr Fischler, something that also shows that the atmosphere between the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Commission has undergone positive change in the direction of directly critical, but constructive cooperation. It is not only I, myself, but also, no doubt, most of our citizens, who welcome the way that Parliament is now demanding decisions on the reduction of live animal transports, which are indeed often carried on only to get export refunds.
I hope that this plenary sitting will see the completion of the discharge procedure for the 2000 Budget. Work is simultaneously in progress on drawing up the 2003 Budget, which is expected to be the last Budget for an EU of fifteen Member States. When the EU is enlarged, the Budget will once again become more complex and more multifaceted. Until then, the Commission will use the time available to support the candidate states in their preparations for enlargement and for participation in the European funds, monitoring the introduction of the necessary measures, and itself further reforming its administrative procedures. That will call for a degree of impetus from Parliament, but especially for cooperation between Parliament and the Commission.
I would like, on behalf of the Commission, to thank you for your cooperation in the past months and will conclude by alluding to an old saying from the world of football, to the effect that the Commission is very well aware that one discharge being over always means that you have another one to face.
This shows the heterogeneous and multifarious nature of the European Union's tasks to which these financial resources go. It shows, too, what varied demands are made on good budget management and proper monitoring. One might add what Mr McCartin has emphatically underlined, namely that the Commission has central administrative responsibilities only for a small part of this and that in other respects, in the Member States, thousands of payment offices for agricultural expenditure, as well as hundreds of ministries and agencies, are responsible for implementation, that is, for receiving applications for funding, examining them and granting them.
Mr McCartin, your report on discharge in respect of the implementation of the Budget for the financial year 2000 reflects the wide range of the Commission's activities, the risks and sources of error specific to each of them, the measures that need to be taken and also, of course, the deficiencies in the way the Budget was managed. It is indeed very comprehensive, and the Commission is very grateful to you for the great balance that this report demonstrates. Let me, too, thank you for your speech and for your committed involvement in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The Commission welcomes the Committee on Budgetary Control's recommendation, by such a large majority, that the Commission should be given discharge in respect of the 2000 Budget. Notwithstanding that, the report and the resolution, indeed, do anything but quiet the Commission's conscience. The report makes 144 demands of the Commission, ranging from the demand that it should submit reports on administrative measures it has taken, to the demand that it should amend laws. I cannot, of course, discuss all these demands now, but I would like to pick out a few of them.
I would like to start by thanking you, Mr Blak, on behalf of the Commission, for your work on the Development Fund and for the recommendation of discharge, which, in accordance with your own tradition – one that I greatly value – comes with numerous demands attached. You, Mr Seppänen, have played a positively historic role as rapporteur for the European Coal and Steel Community budget, and I will also thank Mrs Morgan and Mr Virrankoski. Even though your reports deal with the ways the other institutions implement their budgets, they are elements of the general European Budget.
Mr Staes, your report, which the Commission warmly welcomes, is one that I should like to return to later. The Commission wishes to express its thanks to the Chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, for managing the whole discussion of the discharge so well, and, of course, the secretariat and the whole committee for their hard work.
One of the 2000 Budget year's results that got a very critical reception from the Committee on Budgetary Control was the large Budget surplus of EUR 11.6 billion, which, however, was welcomed by the Finance Ministers of the Member States. I have, in fact, nothing to add to Mr McCartin's description of the positive development on the revenue side. One should naturally welcome a situation in which growth rates are higher than first expected. What should, in fact, be seen in a more critical light is the issue of how outgoings were less than estimated in the Budget. We are not talking here about agricultural or administrative expenditure, where expenditure being lower than estimated really does mean that savings have been made. In the case of the Structural Funds, though, outgoings have been deferred for a period of time.
Not all the regulations that were required could in fact be adopted in time, because it was so late in 1999 that decisions were taken on the agenda, as also described by Mr McCartin. Even today, though, in 2002, we have to record that the programme has been poorly implemented. Conclusions must, then, be drawn from this for the next aid period, and even the present aid period cannot be untouched by change.
Mr Blak has drawn attention to the fact that the European Development Fund had, in real terms, a substantially greater turnover of resources in 2000 than in the preceding year, so this represents a positive development. It is also clear, in view of the immense need in many ACP States that the underutilisation of resources is not about there being any lack of need
but often about a lack of definite projects."@en1
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