Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-29-Speech-3-123"
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"en.20030129.6.3-123"2
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"Madam President, honourable Members, Mr McCartin, last November, I had the opportunity to present to you the Commission's report on the measures we took following Parliament's resolutions on discharge in respect of the 2000 Budget. Mr McCartin has just mentioned that it ran to sixty pages, a fact that I had forgotten.
Recently – just before Christmas – the Commission also adopted a communication on improving the recovery of financial incentives provided in error from the European Budget. A task force, set up by OLAF and the Agriculture Directorate-General, is now at work dealing with the issue, mentioned by Mr McCartin, of what one may term the claims backlogs in the area of agricultural policy. I would like to underline the importance of the establishment of the internal audit service, which will monitor the control systems as well.
I would like to conclude by mentioning that, in the Commission's view, our two institutions' framework agreement on the forwarding of confidential information has proved its worth and has – in accordance with the requirement for transparency – made it possible to provide Parliament with confidential information when the latter has requested this.
Tomorrow, my fellow-Commissioner Neil Kinnock will be putting before the Commission his latest report on the state of play as regards reform. This report had been called for by Parliament, and I think that it, too, will be a sound basis for discussion in the current discharge procedure.
I could describe to you in detail the many action plans that the Commission has conceived, implemented or already brought to a conclusion in its spheres of activity, which are very wide-ranging. The Commission attaches the greatest importance to Parliament's resolution – which now exists in draft form – on this report, and I am glad that the present resolution acknowledges the Commission's efforts to improve its financial management, and the steps it has already taken. In general, the draft resolution encourages the Commission to press on with the efforts it has made to date. At this point, I would like particularly to express my gratitude to the rapporteur for his good cooperation with the Commission. I would also like to thank him for the speech he has just made, for the substantial amount of time and effort he has expended on the report and for the in-depth attention he has devoted to it.
Let me now briefly set out again the main steps that the Commission has taken with a view to improving financial management. I would like to start by discussing the implementation of reforms. The Commission has introduced a range of new instruments – what is termed ‘activity-based management’
APS, that is, annual political strategic planning, and the annual management plans. In 2002, the Directors-General, for the first time, submitted annual activity reports, which also specifically included financial management.
I am unable, at this juncture, to list all the measures, but, among the priorities for 2002, I would like to give a special mention to the adoption of the new Financial Regulation and the drafting and adoption of the implementation provisions, along with the new financial regulations for the European Development Fund and also for the agencies. The new Financial Regulation reinforces the Budget principles, something constantly urged by the Court of Auditors and, I believe, something essential in a Financial Regulation. It gives the authorising officers an enhanced role and, above all, gives greater responsibility to the individual actors in financial activities, with the rules for procurement and the award of grants being tightened up and made uniform. These are just some of the essential points.
Another priority for action in 2002 was the closure of the technical assistance offices, which we had the opportunity to discuss at the last meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control. In order to make its internal financial management more efficient, the Commission has also, with the budgetary authority's support, introduced a wide range of measures to modernise and improve public services, and, in particular, submitted to the Council proposals for a new version of the Staff Regulations. In addition to that, decisions have been taken on administrative and disciplinary measures, and we have set up the Commission's Investigation and Disciplinary Office – IDOC for short.
Another aspect of crucial importance to financial management is the Commission's restructuring of its external service. In order to better approximate programme planning to political priorities, we have drawn up strategy documents relating to countries and regions, and the management of the project cycle as a whole will from now on be the responsibility of a single body, EuropeAid. The Commission has also stepped up the so-called deconcentration of powers in the administration of external aid, transferring them to its delegations in order to guarantee more speedy and, above all, sounder implementation of financial aid.
A second complex issue that I would like to deal with is that of the Budget surpluses, which Mr McCartin has also mentioned. The discrepancy between the payment forecasts for 2001 and the payments actually made by the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund resulted, in essence, from the programmes for the new planning period having completed their initial phases rather more slowly than had been expected. An additional factor was that the payment forecasts submitted to the Commission by the Member States are often – if I may put it diplomatically – very optimistic.
In the course of the Budget year 2002, the Commission had frequent occasion to remind the Member States of their obligations in this regard, in doing which it gave particular emphasis to the importance of estimates being as reliable as possible. Let me, furthermore, follow Mr McCartin in making brief reference to the simplification of the rules of the Structural Funds. One of last year's priorities was to make the utmost use of the opportunities for simplification without going through the entire decision-making process, in other words to have recourse to whatever was administratively feasible.
With the general simplification of regulations and procedures in mind, the Commission has had recourse to a range of horizontal and sector-related initiatives, and it will now examine more closely, in the course of an
evaluation of the effects of proposed legislation, which regulatory instruments are the best suited to the achievement of political objectives. The Commission will also draw up a comprehensive report on the realisation of its objectives – broken down by policy area – and will forward it to the Council and to Parliament."@en1
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