Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-04-21-Speech-3-064"
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"en.20100421.3.3-064"2
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"Commissioner, Mr López Garrido, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my view on the discharge of responsibility by European agencies. Allow me, first of all, to pass on the apologies of my colleague, Georgios Stavrakakis, who was unable to come to the debate on this matter, even though he worked on the report during the last few months as shadow rapporteur for the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament. He cannot come due to the well-publicised transport problems.
In the view of the S&D Group, issues relating to the transparent and legal use of the European Union’s budget are a priority and the management of public finances as a whole depends, to a large extent, on the successful resolution of these issues. For this reason, I would also like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Mathieu, as well as the members of the European Court of Auditors and the heads of the agencies with whom we worked very extensively. I wish to point out that the auditing of budget agencies is an extremely complicated and arduous procedure as there is significant variation among them in terms of their practices and competence.
Allow me to begin with the general statement that 2008 proves that the agencies are continuing to improve the implementation of their budgets from one year to the next. I would like to digress and say to any fellow Members not expecting any comments from the Court of Auditors in support of the budget that the time when the Court of Auditors stops making comments will be when confidence in this body will decrease. The fact is that the number of errors is on the decline and the level of transparency and discipline is on the rise with the implementation of budgets. This progress is also taken into consideration by the European Court of Auditors, while agency heads are making ever-greater efforts to improve accounting and control systems.
There are obviously still shortcomings. These were mentioned by Parliament and the Court of Auditors. The causes of these shortcomings are both objective and subjective. The good news is that they can all be remedied and action is being taken to do this.
The main problem arose with the European Police College CEPOL. The problems in this organisation have been going on for several years and are due to various reasons: the change to the accounting system, unclarified matters relating to the host state, omissions regarding the notification of contracts and the use of public funds for purposes other than those intended. Even though concessions have been made for a few years, producing a result somewhat more slowly than expected, I support this year the postponement of discharge in respect of the implementation of this agency’s 2008 budget until a new audit has been carried out and the College’s new management assumes clear responsibility for ensuring that the irregularities and legal inconsistencies are eliminated in the shortest time possible.
The second problem was linked to Frontex, especially to the agency’s ability to use the resources allocated to it. The head of the agency gave satisfactory answers on this matter during the Committee hearings.
There are a number of actions we need to take in future in the area of budget control within the agencies. I will boil them down to three measures. Firstly, agency heads must continue their efforts to observe stricter compliance with budget discipline. Secondly, measures must be taken to simplify accounting rules, especially in the case of cofinanced and self-financed agencies. Lastly, we must examine a proposal tabled by the Court of Auditors for the introduction of criteria indicating how successfully these agencies perform their tasks."@en1
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