Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-20-Speech-2-431"
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"en.20040420.18.2-431"2
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"Mr President, I would like to start by saying how much I like the rapporteur for the 2002 discharge. He is a remarkably nice man and obviously a great author – an author of fiction. The Committee on Budgetary Control's report on the discharge of the 2002 Commission's accounts is probably the greatest work of fiction I have seen since I came to this Parliament. I am not as well read as many other Members here, but certain sections of it even have a science fiction tilt.
One wonders whether one is looking into the future and talking about what is happening or going to happen in 2005, or whether we are dealing with 2002, which is the year in question. It was in early January 2002 that Marta Andreasen started work for the Commission, and five months into 2002 that she was suspended from her role as an accounting officer for the Commission. So we know that in 2002 there are five months in which there was something wrong with the Commission's accounts. It makes no difference which side of this particular argument you are on – whether you think Marta Andreasen was completely unqualified for the task she was given, whether you think she was completely incompetent or whether you actually think she was right and tried to present a reform that was then blocked from inside the Commission.
The Commission must have thought that Christmas had come early when the rapporteur presented his report. It probably heard the reindeers' bells jingling and could not believe its luck.
Today a number of journalists have been following me around the Parliament; something seems to happen when an election is imminent, and there is more interest in what we do and say. It is very difficult to explain to these journalists – for example the reporter from Rutland Radio who will reach the humble punter in Oakham – why between 5% and 8% of the Commission's budget goes missing through fraud, mismanagement and waste each year.
How can one explain to the readers of the Lincolnshire Echo why it is that the accounts have been not been signed off by the European Court of Auditors? These are flawed accounts, there are problems in them and I certainly will not be voting for them."@en1
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