Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-22-Speech-2-041"
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"en.20080422.4.2-041"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the whole Parliament and all my colleagues are pleased about the progress made in using European appropriations more effectively. We cannot avoid pointing out, however, that there are still some major deficiencies. The Commission should launch infringement proceedings and penalties against Member States that do not apply, or only partially apply, the regulations on the Structural Funds. The Member States should provide all information about corrections and financial recoveries, especially for forthcoming financial management.
The Commission should present Parliament with an evaluation of the quality of annual reports received from individual countries, especially broken down by area of intervention and by different policies. The most important area is that of the Structural Funds, where there is still a significant volume of improper repayments, at 12%.
The Commission must explain how it will ensure this money will be recovered, especially in cases where projects have not been accepted through the use of tendering procedures. Faster and more effective suspension procedures should be used against Member States that do not carry out adequate checks.
The thing I want to emphasise, which seems to me the greatest deficiency of this budget, is external actions: there is not enough information on these, though they benefit from a number of European activities. In particular the Commission should provide greater visibility over projects financed by the European Union for reconstruction in Iraq in 2006; for example, it should list the projects, what they are, the anticipated costs, and the agencies involved.
This information has been supplied, rather late, but I still do not think it is satisfactory. Specifically, I think that for this type of use of funds, we should look at the idea of using the European Agency for Reconstruction, as Parliament has highlighted in the past.
I will quickly come to Parliament’s discharge. First of all, there is the issue of the three sites, raised by the rapporteur, for which the environmental cost should also be added to the financial cost. Finally, the internal report on the management of expenditure for assistants: I believe it was wrong to keep it confidential, because this has led to a whole series of articles in the press that are damaging transparency and the proper functioning of Parliament. For this reason, we ask for this internal audit to be published."@en1
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