Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-26-Speech-4-056"
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"en.20091126.3.4-056"2
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"Madam President, I would first of all like to thank all of the MEPs who have spoken. Their comments will certainly be very much appreciated by all those who work at the Court of Auditors and who were behind the report submitted today.
In the time allotted to me in such an intense and interesting debate, it is a little difficult to answer all the questions that have been put to me directly. I would first like to address the question from Mr de Jong, who asked me whether I was discouraged about not being in a position, as the President of the Court of Auditors, to give a positive DAS. My answer would be that, as an auditor, I would be delighted to give such an opinion when the time came, but it is not the job of auditors to be happy with the opinions that they give. Auditors must have a solid basis for their opinions, drawn from evidence on the ground.
To be very frank, as an auditor I prefer giving an opinion such as the one we have given this year. I will not tell Mr Audy whether it is a positive or negative opinion, but it is a realistic opinion that highlights the points on which progress has been made. We have seen that there has been a sharp fall in the number of errors in some areas, in particular in the area of agriculture, but there are also areas where more care is needed. Therefore, rather than being optimistic or pessimistic, as an auditor I prefer to be realistic.
I think that this is the way that our message should be understood with regard to prospects for the future. Several MEPs have asked what can be done to solve these problems. The Court of Auditors has made its contribution in this report and in previous reports by pointing out that its recommendations in relation to improving the supervisory and control systems in the Member States are important, and by stating, with regard to the Commission, that it is equally important to simplify the regulatory framework, which means not making things more complicated than they need to be. We cannot move from a stage in which we want to do everything and control everything – which requires excessive controls – to a stage in which there is no supervision at all. Otherwise, we will not be able to find the right balance to enable us to achieve the objectives of the policies.
Several of you have said that this report does not talk about how efficiently the funds are used. Did the few errors or irregularities identified prevent projects from being completed? Obviously, the Court of Auditors is supposed to give an opinion in its reports regarding the financial statements, which is a clearly positive opinion, and on the underlying transactions of these accounts. This is about whether the transactions comply with the rules that they are supposed to follow.
However, the Court of Auditors also provides you and, in particular, the competent parliamentary committees, the Committee on Budgetary Control, with all of our reports relating to the effectiveness of the policies and whether the funds in the different areas are being used correctly. I hope that you will find significant information in those reports in terms of what could be done better in the context of these policies. However, as it says in our report – and I emphasised this in my speech – it is important to seize this opportunity that the reform of the financial regulation and the new framework for the financial perspective are offering us for the future, and the opportunity that the budgetary reform is giving us to consider some fundamental issues.
Allow me to conclude, Madam President, by saying that our methodology complies with international auditing standards. We consider our samples to be appropriate for drawing our conclusions. Mr Audy asked the following question: are your samples of sufficient size? The answer is yes. Obviously, if we had more resources, we could possibly do more work, but our resources are limited and we are supposed to manage our resources carefully.
Finally, a word on the role that the Court of Auditors and the courts of auditors in the Member States can play in the future. We always work with the courts of auditors in the Member States and with the national auditors by cooperating with one another and trusting one another. This approach is provided for by the treaty – and reaffirmed by the Treaty of Lisbon – and in following it, we are doing our best to ensure that, by and large, we can bring added value to the role of external auditing in the European Union.
Those are my very brief final remarks, Madam President, as I did not wish to take up too much of your time."@en1
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