Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-14-Speech-2-013"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20061114.5.2-013"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Madam President, Vice-President Kallas, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to have the opportunity today of participating in your debate on the 29th Annual Report of the Court of Auditors, for the 2005 financial year, at the plenary session of the European Parliament.
The Commission argues that the errors found and reported by the Court are of little import since the various multi-annual correction mechanisms detect and correct errors and irregularities when the programmes are finalised.
The audit work of the Court shows that in practice these corrections are insufficient and that they are not directed towards the final beneficiaries in all areas. Furthermore, there are numerous shortcomings in recovery procedures. In the areas of shared management with Member States, for example, the Court’s findings were as follows. As regards agricultural spending, the financial clearance procedures are much delayed – the last fully cleared financial year was 1998 – and, due to failures in the system, the conformity decisions imposed fines only on the authorities of Member States. Since, in most cases, excess amounts paid to the final beneficiaries are not recovered, the burden is borne by the national taxpayer rather than by those final beneficiaries who overclaim.
As regards structural measures, the 1994-1999 programmes have still not been completely closed and the Court finds that a number of the programmes that have been closed still exhibit substantial error levels. Moreover, the Commission closed a number of programmes without making financial corrections despite there being significant reservations in respect of the certified expenditure. This clearly highlights the risk that errors in intermediate payment claims may not be corrected in practice.
I would like to emphasise the fact that the Court, clearly, welcomes recoveries to the benefit of the EU budget. However, it must be pointed out that flat-rate financial corrections are made for weaknesses in the control systems of the Member States. As a consequence of this, these corrections do not, as a rule, lead to rectification of the errors of legality and regularity in the underlying transactions at the level of the final beneficiaries.
In the Court’s opinion, there are a number of measures that should be taken to address these shortcomings. There needs to be a logical chain of effective internal controls based on unambiguous and appropriate rules and on common principles and standards, taking into account risk assessment of the nature of transactions and types of management. Effective recovery and sanction systems should likewise be applied in all areas of the EU budget.
For its part, the Court of Auditors is keen to explore more intensively areas of common interest with the national audit institutions. For the meeting of the Contact Committee of the Heads of the Supreme Audit Institutions in Warsaw next month, the Court has suggested extending current levels of cooperation to cover assessment of internal control systems in the Member States.
The European Union is facing renewed challenges in the shape of the rules of operation, the completion and closure of the current structural funds spending programmes and the opening of the 2007-2013 programmes, as well as the imminent accession of two new Member States. Allow me to conclude by setting out how EU financial management should approach these challenges.
The Commission, together with the authorities in the Member States, must ensure that there are efficient and reliable internal control systems across all levels of EU administration; that these systems, in turn, include sufficient checks which are properly carried out, reported and followed up; and that the systems in question are based on simplified regulations governing EU expenditure.
We should all be aiming for a European Union which has its budget under effective control for the benefit of its citizens. Thank you for your kind attention.
I presented this report to the Committee on Budgetary Control in Strasbourg on 23 October and to the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) in Brussels on 7 November. Each annual report from the Court is the culmination of complex and exhaustive audit work performed in situ by our auditors over the course of the preceding 12 months at all levels of the administration of EU resources.
In accordance with the principles of international auditing standards and as corroborated by external experts, the audit evidence of the Court is based on the exhaustive examination of samples of transactions from the individual budget areas and on assessments of the functioning of the internal control systems for expenditure. Only serious formal errors and errors with financial consequences, inflated expenditure claims, ineligible beneficiaries and expenditure form the basis of the Court’s Statement of Assurance.
One of the Court’s primary duties, and one that it has been required under the Treaty to carry out since its inception, is to perform cost-benefit analyses, the results of which the Court publishes in its special reports. In addition, the Court's assessments of the internal control systems, which are required for the annual Statement of Assurance, form an important basis for these cost-benefit analyses.
Allow me now to turn to the Court's key audit findings for 2005. In respect of those areas in which considerable improvements have been achieved, the Court duly recognises the Commission’s success in managing and implementing the change from cash-based to accruals-based accounting. The Court has reached the conclusion that the consolidated annual accounts of the EU general budget for 2005, totalling EUR 105 billion, are reliable. I must qualify this audit opinion, however, in the light of the net overvaluation of assets and the inconsistent application of cut-off procedures.
As regards the legality and regularity of underlying transactions, the Court again provides an unqualified opinion on revenue, funds commitment, EU administrative expenditure and pre-accession strategy, excluding Sapard.
A positive view can also be taken of the Integrated Administrative and Control System (IACS), which covers 56% of expenditure within the framework of the common agricultural policy. As in 2004, the Court confirms that the IACS has, where properly implemented, successfully played its part in preventing irregular agricultural expenditure. In practice this is the case in the EU15, with the exception of Greece. In the new Member States, the implementation of IACS has progressed well, although these systems are not yet fully effective.
As the Court’s detailed audit evidence shows, the remainder of the areas of expenditure, which accounts, in terms of value, for the majority of the EU budget, is still characterised by material errors of legality and regularity in the underlying transactions. In other words, the Court is once again unable to approve without qualification the expenditure areas, in particular, of agriculture (taken as a whole), structural measures and internal and external policies. This is the result of the high level of irregularities found, which include inflated expenditure claims, duplicated cost listings, ineligible beneficiaries and/or projects, claims for expenditure not actually incurred and breaches of the rules governing public tendering procedures.
These irregularities are able to occur because the current internal controls on EU expenditure are inadequate. According to the EC Treaty it is the responsibility of the Commission to ensure that the internal control systems are in place and work effectively in practice at all levels of EU administration. Not only has the Court found evidence of the inadequate performance of checks on payments under shared management, namely agricultural expenditure and structural measures, but it has also found that the Commission has failed to lead by example in respect of EU expenditure managed directly by it, that is to say internal and external policies. Thus, in the field of research, for instance, the Commission considerably reduced its checks on expenditure claims in 2005 despite the continuing high levels of error and the inherent risk in this type of expenditure."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples