Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-11-Speech-4-008"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20101111.3.4-008"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, it is an honour for me to be able to participate in the debate today on the European Court of Auditors’ annual report on the implementation of the 2009 budget, which I have already presented to you and to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
There are a number of initiatives before us which provide an important opportunity to improve the financial management of the European Union. This year’s annual report confirms the conclusions and the recommendations set out in the Court opinion on the risks and challenges for improving the financial management of the European Union. Improving the quality of spending should be a high priority. Simplifying the legislative framework and introducing more cost-effective control systems to reduce the risk of errors should contribute to this goal.
Earlier this year, the Commission presented a draft recast Financial Regulation. In its recent opinion on this, the Court concludes that it contains a number of proposals that provide opportunities for the Commission to improve transparency and financial management. Simplification of sectoral legislation remains, however, an important route to a significant improvement in the quality of spending.
Next year, the Commission will present legislative proposals for policies and programmes covering the main areas of expenditure in the next programming produced. When revising expenditure programmes, the Court suggests applying a set of principles to ensure that European added value is likely, that the objectives are clear, that the schemes are as realistic and simple as is reasonably possible, and that accountability is also clear.
Ensuring the European funds are spent optimally places heavy responsibilities on all of us: on the Commission, when proposing legislation and implementing the budget; on the Member States in managing, day-to-day, some 80% of the European budget; on Parliament and on the Council as legislator and as the discharge authority; and on the Court as the Union’s external auditor.
The Court looks forward to playing its full part in efforts to ensure that the funds are spent correctly and are spent well.
I would like to present to the House the four key messages contained in this year’s annual report. First, the Court concludes that the accounts of the European Union give a fair presentation, and a true and fair view, of the financial position and the result of operations and cash flows. This is the third consecutive year the Court has found the accounts to be free from material misstatements and reliable.
As regards legality and regularity, the Court gives an unqualified opinion on revenue and commitments, as in previous years. However, and this is the second key message of this year’s annual report, payments from the budget continue to be materially affected by error, except in two areas. Those exceptions are administrative expenditure and economic and financial affairs.
In all other areas of expenditure, the Court found material levels of error. I will focus on the two main areas of expenditure: agriculture and cohesion.
In the area of agriculture and natural resources, the Court estimates the level of errors to be somewhat higher than in 2008. However, the results are consistent with the Court’s assessment, in both years, that systems are only partially effective. The Court recommends reducing the risk of error by improving the quality of information in the databases used for establishing entitlements and calculating payments, and by clarifying and enforcing rules on land usage and maintenance.
In the area of cohesion, which represents almost a third of the budget, the situation remains that this is the only budgetary area where the estimated error is over 5%. Most of the errors found relate to serious failures by national authorities to apply rules on public procurement and to the reimbursement of ineligible costs. Many errors could, and should, have been detected and corrected by Member States before certifying expenditure to the Commission, as the audit shows they had the information to do so.
If we analyse this year’s results and compare them to last year, we see that the most significant change is in cohesion. That brings me to the Court’s third key message. The estimate for the most likely error in cohesion spending was significantly lower than in previous years, and for the budget as a whole, the Court’s estimate of errors has fallen over recent years.
However, a degree of caution is necessary before drawing any conclusions about the trend in this area; due to variations in spending patterns, the population of payments can change considerably from one year to the other – 2009 being notably different from 2008. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the overall fall in the estimated error rate over recent years will continue, so long as the systems covering the vast majority of disbursements remain only partially effective.
That brings me to the last key message. The information provided by the Commission on recoveries and other corrections is not yet completely reliable and cannot be meaningfully compared with the Court’s estimated error rate."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples