Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-18-Speech-1-089"
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"en.20080218.21.1-089"2
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"Mr President, I would also like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report and I would like to mention a couple of points before making an appeal to the Council and the Commission.
The first point is that we need to publish the recipients of financial support from the European Union. This concerns the agricultural sector in particular. We should treat this information with caution and fairness. We cannot have a situation where some Member States comply with the disclosure requirement and others do not. There are links on the Commission website to 14 national websites concerning the recipients of agricultural support, which means that there are another 13 missing. Perhaps the Commission could explain why that is. Is this information not available in electronic format or have the Member States still not supplied the figures?
In addition to this, the Commission should think about the protection of those recipients whose details are to be published: protection from radical animal rights activists, for instance, a problem that several Member States, including my own, are having to deal with at the moment.
Finally, the fact is that the data are difficult to compare and so more direction from the Commission is needed. I understand from the Commissioner that he will take the initiative on this tomorrow in relation to the Structural Funds and I am pleased to hear that.
My second point concerns the annual reports on the activities of the institutions, where there has been some improvement, but this is a sensitive topic.
Now to my appeal, which is related to the fact that 80% of the funds in Europe are not managed centrally but through the Member States or in collaboration with the Member States. We could improve and tighten up transparency and control at European level for all eternity but as long as the Member States do not take responsibility by means of the National Declarations of Assurance, ensuring balanced control will remain difficult. It takes two to tango
We can dance the most brilliant spirited dance through the field of budgetary control at European level, but as long as the Member States do not dance along it will never be a prize-winning performance. I therefore call on the Member States to accept their responsibilities and I call on the Commission to support this process in connection with the national declarations, like a good conductor, shall we say, or like a dance teacher: you should know that yourself, Commissioner. We on this side would like to count on your support."@en1
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