Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-11-Speech-4-037"
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"en.20101111.3.4-037"2
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"Madam President, honourable Members, thank you for all the kind comments that you have addressed to the Court on this occasion, as a tribute also to those who work in our institution each day addressing, with the highest professional standards, and in accordance with international audit standards, the concerns of this institution. We pay due attention to the recommendations of this House and let me just give you two examples of what we have done in this annual report for 2009 to address the request from this institution for more information.
We provide you with an overall assessment of the situation; for the first time, we say what the overall situation is. We conclude that it has improved over recent years; the most likely errors for the whole budget are decreasing. We have also provided you, in particular in the area of cohesion, with more information than last year, because last year we said that at least 11% of the funds should not have been paid; this year, we are able to say that the most likely error estimated is indeed over 5%, which we could not say last year, and that at least 3% of the funds should not have been reimbursed. This is the measure of the progress we have found. These are facts. Why? What are the reasons behind this? What progress have we achieved? We are not inventing facts; we are not being kind to the Commission or kind to the Member States. The Court is an independent audit institution governed by the treaty. We base our findings on the evidence and it is what we report to this institution, which we have the obligation to assist in this discharge procedure.
We are willing to assist you in this work and the main reason for this, as we said in our report, is that on the one hand, the systems put in place to manage the funds for this programme period 2007-2013 are performing better. The other reason is that the disbursement of funds for the programming period is only 25%, so the financial execution for the period is, in our evidence, lower than what should be expected. So the combination of these two factors – better performance of the systems on the one hand and lower execution, so fewer payments effectively made, on the other – has given us the situation where we now are. This is where we have this word of caution. We have to see how things evolve now with the systems behaving so well across all the 27 Member States and with all the funds to be disbursed in the future. So a word of caution.
But I said that we are willing to assist this House, and particularly the Committee on Budgetary Control, in its discharge. Our Members will assist you with that and provide you with all the information you need. But we are also assisting you through our special reports. You can find audits and other elements which look at the impact of the funding in real life, at how effectively they have been used, and I think that this is very valuable information for this institution also.
Clearly, the responsibility for implementing the budget lies primarily with the European Commission, but the Lisbon Treaty says also in cooperation with the Member States. If we have to look forward, I would say that we now have a unique opportunity to build a new momentum for a better management of the European Union budget. A new Financial Regulation is being discussed and will be adopted soon and that will be the basic line to decide and guide the management for future progress. If we have to have simple rules, if we want to have more efficient, cost-effective systems to manage them through the Member States and within the Commission, that is the moment to address those issues. The budget review is also on the table next year.
So the Commission, the Council, the European Parliament are therefore confronted now with a period for taking serious decisions to improve the situation in the future. If the European Court of Auditors can assist in that, I would suggest it should be by building on the recommendations that we have already put forward in our opinion on the key risks and challenges for improving the financial management of the Union.
When you look to the new generation of programmes for the period after 2013, I repeat, we have to ask: are the programmes of funding schemes likely to add value to the European Union? Are we putting forward schemes which are simple, with clear objectives, realistic to execute and whose accountability lines are clear? We want to avoid the uncertainty where we are sometimes claiming that there is no responsibility either on the side of the Commission or on the side of the Member States. We have the opportunity now and the Court of Auditors is looking forward to assisting you in this task."@en1
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