Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-18-Speech-2-020"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20031118.2.2-020"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, to begin with, I should like to say how encouraging it is that Commission President Prodi and the Commission have apparently learned from the Eurostat case, that there are a number of things that are to be tidied up and that a number of reforms are to be implemented so that nothing similar happens in the future.
In the process that is now to be begun, it is absolutely crucial to ensure that we continue to have a strong internal audit service which, in spite of everything, is of course the first link in the chain when it comes to discovering fraud, misappropriation and irregularities. It is important for us to have a strong and independent OLAF. It is particularly important for us to have a clear definition of political responsibility. I think, in actual fact, that political responsibility is of crucial importance and, what is more, political responsibility borne by the individual Commissioner. If we do not have this, I do not believe it will be possible for the reforms to percolate through the system and down to the individual employee, lowest in the hierarchy.
I therefore listened, of course, with great attention to Mr Prodi’s remark that we are now to have a definition of political responsibility. I should therefore like to ask the President of the Commission how the political responsibility we are now to have defined differs from that defined by the independent experts and that indicated in the Code of Conduct signed by the Commissioners in 1999.
We are now also to have a monitoring unit for picking up signals if something goes wrong. Mr Prodi argues that the Commission did not have the ability to intervene prior to May 2003. My question, however, is this: what kind of signals is this group to pick up? Now that it has emerged that 14 critical auditors’ reports are not enough, just as complaints from various employees to different Commissioners, letters in the press, hearings in the Committee on Budgetary Control and auditors’ letters to the Commissioner responsible in the department responsible are not enough, what kind of signals are needed before the Commission intervenes?"@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples