Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-04-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20021204.2.3-012"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Fabra Vallés, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by extending my warm congratulations to the Court of Auditors on twenty-five years of its existence and on last week's celebrations, which were entirely worthy of the occasion. Today's discussion on the Court's annual report for 2001, which you, Mr Fabra Vallés, thankfully presented to the Committee on Budgetary Control as long ago as the beginning of November, makes it possible for us to examine the same key areas that have already been mentioned – notably the enormous Budget surplus of over EUR 15 billion, the significance of which is that 16% of the resources allocated were not able to be spent even after the 2000 financial year had come to an end with all of 14% of funds unused and left over. We are very much in favour of frugality, but not at the expense of objectives that have been decided on, unless the capacity for implementing them had been overestimated from the outset!
In Chapter I, the Court reiterates the call it made in the previous year for a supplementary and amending Budget to be presented in good time. The Commission's response to this may well be technically correct, but it is not the right one politically. There is still a great deal of work to be done here. What the Court has to say in Chapter 9 of the Statement of Assurance is most interesting, but, at the same time, gives rise to grave concern. Again, with the exception of a few areas, certification of the accounts is withheld. The question arises of whether the top notch on this yardstick will ever be reached. In terms of discharge, the really important things will be a series of items such as Commission reform, financial management and the new Financial Regulation.
The reliability of the Commission's accounting system has been the subject of vigorous debate, which the media have broadcast far and wide. The Committee on Budgetary Control was prevented from hearing the arguments of the Commission's accounting officer, who has since been suspended. What we now read in the Court's report– on pages 308 ff. for example – paints a pretty grim picture of deficits that have been present in the Commission's book-keeping and accounting procedures for years. Putting together the Court's criticisms in its reports from 1994 onwards, the result is proof of the culpably negligent way in which the Commission goes about remedying these serious defects. According to its current plans, the Commission intends to progressively remove them, but it will be 2005 by the time it will have done it, so the Court of Auditors and Parliament will have many years more checking up to do.
I will end with two questions. The first is whether 2001 saw an improvement in Budget implementation. It is the discharge resolution that will provide the answer to that. The second is this: under the Treaty, it is the Commission that is responsible for the management of the Budget as a whole. The new Financial Regulation gives its Directorates-General decentralised responsibility. Who, though, in the Commission, is responsible for the monitoring of the whole within the Commission itself? The individual Directors-General, the Budget Directorate-General, or the accounting officer? In any case, it is, above all, you, Commissioner Schreyer, in your role as Budget Commissioner, to whom we shall continue to address our questions."@en1
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