Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-26-Speech-4-013"
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"en.20091126.3.4-013"2
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"There are certainly a great many positive things to say today. For the second time in a row, we can speak of an unqualified opinion on the accounts. The level of the irregularities is decreasing. The traffic light system, whose lights all used to be on red, is gradually showing more and more amber, yellow and, in particular, green. These are all positive aspects.
Another positive aspect is agriculture, which used to be a real source of concern. For years on end, we have regarded IACS – the system ensuring common management of agricultural expenditure – as a good system. We had seen Member States such as Greece failing to take part. These are obviously all things that are moving in the right direction.
All the same, there are sources of concern. These include cohesion, research and development, energy, transport, and the whole chapter on external aid, development and enlargement. In my opinion, therefore, we must try to select a number of issues for attention from the discharge we are addressing today. Cohesion will be one such issue. I would remind the House of the notorious comment in paragraph 6.17 that up to 11% of the expenditure in respect of the Structural Funds, European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund should not actually have been disbursed. In my opinion, we must ask the competent Commissioners many questions about this and look at the precise state of affairs.
Then there is external aid, development and enlargement; the whole package of funds that we channel to the United Nations. Once again, I read in the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors that – like other organisations – the Court has insufficient or even no access to the accounts of the United Nations, which means that large amounts of European funds channelled to this organisation cannot, in fact, be properly controlled.
A third issue to be addressed is the whole system of comanagement. As the general rapporteur has pointed out, 80% of all European funds are actually spent within the framework of comanagement, by the Member States and the Commission. We must now, once again, exert pressure on the Member States’ finance ministers, in particular, to ensure that they shoulder their responsibility and issue a declaration stating that they have done their jobs properly, that their administration has spent funds correctly, and that this has been subject to controls.
I myself am responsible for own resources on the Committee on Budgetary Control. The whole VAT dossier continues to cause me concern. We have published various reports on the subject, including in the previous parliamentary term. According to estimates, total VAT fraud Europe-wide amounts to EUR 80-100 billion. The Court of Auditors has made a number of observations on this, too. Therefore, I should like to devote particular attention to this matter in the discharge.
I should like to finish off by mentioning the discharge for the other institutions. I myself am rapporteur for Parliament’s discharge. In my opinion, the key issues in this regard should include public procurement procedures, where problems are apparent. Finally, concerning the Council’s discharge, we granted that discharge earlier this week. This Court of Auditors’ report, too, raises some very negative points about the Council. In my opinion, we must continually exert pressure on the Council to grant access to its accounts such as to allow Parliament to properly control this kind of …
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