Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-04-Speech-4-010"
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"en.20031204.1.4-010"2
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"Mr President, I should like to thank the Court of Auditors and its President very much for this valuable report.
We are forced once again to observe that the Court of Auditors is very keenly critical of the way in which the Commission conducted itself during the previous budget year. There are such large areas of doubt and such major errors that, in practice, the Court of Auditors is giving the thumbs down to quite crucial areas of the EU budget.
The problem is that it is difficult to judge whether the trend is for the better or for the worse. It would have been desirable if, as in previous years, the Court of Auditors had been able to quote a percentage figure for the funds it considers to have been wrongly expended. Now that we are no longer being given this percentage figure, it is difficult to decide whether the trend really is in the right direction, as it is often maintained to be.
The Court of Auditors again sets out a general reservation concerning the accounting system itself, which is obviously the most serious point on which we have to adopt a position. This means that there are doubts hanging over a very great many of the figures. We do not know whether we can fully rely upon them.
We have been promised thorough reform by 2005, but we have today heard again that the Court of Auditors doubts that it will be possible to implement this reform adequately by 2005. There is therefore still a danger of new scandals, for the Commission clearly has no general view of the way in which the budget is implemented. That is shown with all the clarity one could wish for by, in particular, the Eurostat scandal.
I also intended to say a few words about the European Development Fund, for I am the rapporteur when it comes to discharging it of liability this year. It has emerged that funds from the European Development Fund have been misused by the same firms that are involved in the Eurostat scandal. Money from the European Development Fund has been used to finance contracts between Comesa (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) and CESD, the firm that defrauded Eurostat of at least EUR 3 million. The internal auditing service concludes that there is a large risk of errors having been made, of there having been double payments and of there being conflicts of interest and so on. The Directorate-General Development entered into a contract with this firm as recently as in April 2001, a contract valid for 33 months. I should like to ask the Commission whether this contract has now been terminated.
One of the main proposals by the Court of Auditors regarding the European Development Fund is that this be incorporated into the ordinary budget. I am totally convinced that such a measure would facilitate reform and make it easier to obtain control in this area, in which a lot is at present unclear, especially when it comes, for example, to the control of direct budget aid to different countries."@en1
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