Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-29-Speech-4-028"
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"en.20071129.3.4-028"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to highlight the very positive attitude and valuable work of the Court of Auditors and in particular to draw attention to the figures which we have received as regards the 2006 annual report.
There is an improvement in the use of Community funds. This year, the Court has positively assessed the way in which 40% of funds have been spent, in comparison with 30% last year. The positive development of which we can be sure, even though funds are far from being fully used, is that progress is being made every year. Years ago the Court gave the green light to only 6% of total expenditure.
It is therefore interesting to note that most of the problems encountered are largely to do with irregularities rather than fraud. The most frequent types of errors are missing documents, failure to respect eligibility criteria, inaccurate declarations and failure to comply with procedures. Complying with the formalities is obviously a problem.
The new Financial Regulation is a step forward towards simpler and more transparent governance. Mandatory disclosure in respect of funds administered directly by national and regional authorities, which account for some 80% of the Community budget, is of particular importance.
Much remains to be done to streamline the formalities with a view to simplifying the provisions governing the release of funds. That would make it possible substantially to reduce irregularities, especially on the part of small beneficiaries, many of whom lack the facilities required to carry out the necessary procedures.
Lastly, a key point of the European financial control system continues to be the issue of recoveries. If recovery work is to be made easier, more detailed information and data need to be made available to the Court of Auditors, Parliament and the Commission and more binding legislative instruments, such as guarantee and performance bond systems, need to be introduced.
Although the results set out in the annual report of the Court of Auditors show some improvement, I would conclude by saying that simplifying procedures and improving cooperation by states during the control stage continue to be major challenges."@en1
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