Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-12-Speech-2-016"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050412.6.2-016"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, I too should like to start by taking my turn to thank our general rapporteur, Terry Wynn, all my honourable friends on the Committee on Budgetary Control and the committee secretariat for their cooperation and support during the preparation of this report.
Development policy is an essential component of the European Union's external action. It is a policy which we all hope will efficiently target the eradication of poverty and the bolstering of social infrastructures, education, health and the local development of the countries which we want to support in their efforts to achieve progress and social prosperity.
The European Development Fund is an important tool for carrying out this policy in the ACP countries. However, it needs to be made more effective through a greater focus on actions aimed at poverty eradication and through better and faster implementation.
According to the Court of Auditors' statement of assurance, the accounts reliably reflect the revenue and expenditure relating to the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth European Development Funds, which is what we are examining today. The Court of Auditors points out certain problems, mainly in relation to use of the Stabex funds, the funds transferred to the European Investment Bank and not utilised and the amounts payable to the European Development Funds and not included in the balance sheet at 31 December 2003. The European Commission should step up its efforts to address the weaknesses identified in supervisory systems and controls.
One issue which also attracted a great deal of our attention was the responsibilities of the Commissioners and, more importantly, the confusion between the responsibilities of the Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, who is responsible for the policy of the European Development Fund, and the Commissioner for External Relations, who is responsible for the functioning of EuropeAide. During discussions with Commissioner Michel, who also wrote to us and we thank him for that, he assured us that there would be coordinated cooperation in the Commission on this issue. We thank him for their efforts but, as the Committee on Budgetary Control and as the European Parliament, we shall continue to monitor this issue, so that there are no problems in the future.
Another issue to which particular attention needs to be paid concerns the RAL. A detailed study is needed on the part of the European Commission into the origin of this high level of unspent resources, together with a method to speed up the implementation of these resources, which will also result in the improved implementation of the European Development Fund overall.
The decentralisation of resources to the Commission's representations, which was an ambitious plan and is at the completion stage, is moving in a positive direction and we are optimistic. However, we want an assurance that this procedure, which is under way, will also be accompanied by commensurate controls. This is another issue that we shall continue to monitor with a great deal of interest in the immediate future.
Finally, as far as the integration of the European Development Fund into the Community budget is concerned, the European Parliament has also discussed this issue in the past. The view taken by Parliament is that budgetisation will remove the complications which we presently encounter with the implementation of the European Development Fund and will contribute to better financial management and transparency. However, as the issue of the budgetisation of the EDF is a broader issue which touches on the debate on the new financial perspectives, we reserve Parliament's right to take a final stand on this issue when we take a stand on the new financial perspectives.
With these general comments and taking account of the Court of Auditors' report, I should like to recommend that you give discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth European Development Funds for the financial year 2003."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples