Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-22-Speech-2-026"
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"en.20080422.4.2-026"2
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".
What I have to present here is an object lesson for all those who are interested in the way political decisions are actually made, a didactic play about the failure of control to function in this Parliament. When the political science students of the future or citizens who are interested in politics get wind of it, it will be a classic. As part of the discharge report, we took over, word for word, passages provided by members of the main Groups expressing opinions that were critical of the agencies. For example, that it is clear that decentralisation and devolution were one of the main results of the process of Commission reform that was started in 1999, but that the Commission has still not produced a study or report or interim financial statement on this form of administrative management. This was then included in my main considerations.
The author of this text, Mrs Gräßle, comes from a large group. Her amendment to the report was to remove precisely those statements. There are many other examples, including Mrs Haug’s contribution, which also related to critical remarks about the agencies, highlighting, for example, that only two of the agencies are completely independent of EU grants, while most of them are financed exclusively from EU funds – that is in one of Mrs Haug’s documents. However, here it has been cut out!
The Chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mr Bösch, frequently makes very critical remarks about the agencies – but not in committee. Then when it really matters, when it is the appropriate time, when there is a real opportunity to pinpoint that there has been irresponsible proliferation amongst the agencies, that so much is in a sorry state, then, at the request of the large groups, it is simply deleted. As if that were not enough, what others are allowed to do, I, as rapporteur, may not do. Thus the whole explanatory statement is simply censored, so I will therefore take the liberty to read out what otherwise would no longer be accessible to the public from the plenary.
The part that was cut out reads: ‘Decentralisation and devolution were key objectives of the Commission reform process starting in 1999. To date, no assessment of this process has been submitted. In addition, the Commission has never given a convincing explanation of the added value provided by the decentralised agencies, why their tasks could not equally well be performed within the Commission, or, as in many cases, why action by the European Union was required in the area concerned in the first place.
Instead, the result has been irresponsible proliferation. New agencies have been set up on the basis of bizarre political decisions. These new agencies are not subject to control and are often uncontrollable, mostly inefficient and, above all, they give rise to significant burdens on European taxpayers.
At the same time, an unprecedented range of staff privileges has become established. In other words, the Commission's reform efforts, whose aims were linked to assurances concerning responsibility, accountability, efficiency, a new European service culture and transparency, have proved a spectacular failure. The unacceptable confusion in the area of devolution and decentralisation policy is now clear for all to see. Responsible action this is not.’
Even a rapporteur is not allowed to include this in an explanatory statement. Of course, it fits with this political scenario that, when the debate began on the twenty reports that I presented to the Committee, every time anyone else spoke, the amendments had been prepared and also censored behind their back."@en1
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