Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-26-Speech-3-162"
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"en.20060426.15.3-162"2
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"Mr President, the European Union’s political legitimacy is limited and dwindling. This lack of confidence in the EU is, unfortunately, well deserved. The EU does not demonstrate a convincing resolve to clamp down on irregularities, fraud and the abuse of power in its institutions. In practice, there is little readiness to demand accountability. The instinct is to cover things up. Whistle-blowers lose their jobs instead of receiving praise. Cheating and scandals are not investigated, and no legal proceedings are brought in connection with those that are. Discharge is granted in spite of the fact that we do not know if everything has proceeded correctly.
The Court of Auditors has problems with its organisational structure, which is in need of reform. This is something that needs to be got to grips with in the ongoing evaluation preparatory to overhauling the organisation of the Court, preferably in accordance with the proposal for reform devised by the British House of Lords.
Again, Parliament should call on the Court of Auditors not to permit the use of official cars for private purposes.
I turn now to our black sheep, namely the Committee of the Regions which, of the ‘Other Institutions’ examined, has attracted the most criticism from the Court of Auditors. During 2004, the internal audit was in practice carried out by a single internal auditor, and a temporary one at that. An internal auditor dependent on a constantly renewable employment contract must find it very difficult to maintain his or her independence from the management of the organisation concerned. It is indefensible that the Committee of the Regions should not, then, have had a proper internal audit carried out during 2004, in spite of Parliament’s robust criticism of that institution in relation to 2003. We have still not received any explanation of the fact that the internal auditor employed up until May 2004 was in no position to produce any auditor’s reports.
There continues an OLAF investigation into the Committee of the Regions in connection with its reimbursement of members’ expenses, to which a correction coefficient was applied. Payments for which there was no underlying proof of entitlement had been granted. It seems obvious that this should have been discovered by the Committee of the Regions no later than in the course of 2004 and that these payments should then have been stopped. In spite of this, the Committee’s managers state that there is no question of there having been any cases of fraud. In connection with this matter, no clear information has been given, either, of measures having been taken to claim back incorrect payments. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that these payments were to people in key positions within the administration. In recent years, the Committee of the Regions has been partly characterised by irregularities of various kinds, showing that the promised culture change within the organisation has not taken place. It now looks as if OLAF will produce its final report in the middle of May. It would be irresponsible to grant discharge before we know the results of this investigation.
The reorganisation of the Committee of the Regions has in several cases meant that people involved in suspected irregularities have been promoted, which is also irregular.
The Court of Auditors is continuing with its investigation in connection with the Belliard I and II buildings. The Montoyer project, too, should be examined. No explanation has been given to date as to why the person formerly responsible for infrastructure appears to have withdrawn his statement as authorising officer by subdelegation for the financial year 2004. It needs also to be explained to us why I as rapporteur was not informed of this, and it needs to be made clear to us how the date of theoretical acceptance was established. Should the damages claimed from the construction company have perhaps been higher? What is more, the Committee of the Regions’ internal auditor was refused access to the documents he had requested in this connection. There are strong reasons also for awaiting the outcome of the Court of Auditors’ ongoing investigation into the matter before we grant discharge.
I also wish to take this opportunity to inform the Chamber of the odd way in which the Committee of the Regions has been treated by the Committee on Budgetary Control. I had received information from a variety of sources indicating that there was much more to be criticised in the Committee of the Regions’ area of financial responsibility than the Committee itself had provided information about. I therefore obtained the Committee on Budgetary Control’s agreement to our questioning OLAF’s investigators and the Committee of the Regions’ internal auditors for 2004 behind closed doors. The meeting was scheduled for the morning of Tuesday, 21 March 2006. The Committee on Budgetary Control met at 3 p.m. on the day before this and began by approving the agenda, whereupon a majority suddenly demanded that the questioning scheduled for the following morning should be cancelled.
A majority of members of the Committee on Budgetary Control refused, then, to study information that I, as rapporteur, considered to be of vital importance in adopting a position on the discharge issue. I did not find out why. I maintain that if the EU’s financial interests are to be protected, the committee needs to take on board all the relevant information on such issues. The majority of the Committee refused to study the information and then voted in favour of our proposing to Parliament that discharge be granted right now, in spite of the fact that I as rapporteur maintain that we should await the outcome of ongoing investigations by OLAF and the Court of Auditors.
I understand that the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have now had the opportunity to study documents indicating various irregularities. If Parliament still grants discharge, it will not then be possible subsequently to plead ignorance. Comparison might be made with what is now happening regarding the granting of discharge to the President in the light of the rents in Strasbourg.
On this subject, Parliament is coming to the conclusion that new information has come to light that must be studied before a decision on discharge is taken. There is an exact parallel with the situation regarding the Committee of the Regions. The only difference is that the Strasbourg issue has found its way into the media. Do newspaper articles have to appear before there is a response from Members of the European Parliament? Should it not be obvious that Members will decide to vote against granting discharge to the Committee of the Regions until such time as all the uncertainties have been clarified?
A majority of this Chamber appears to want to conceal unpleasant truths about the European Union from people so that the EU does not become still more unpopular. That is a deeply undemocratic attitude. Our task is to elicit the truth and to demand accountability on our citizens’ behalf, not to conceal the truth from them.
I therefore appeal to all Members carefully to consider what they are voting on tomorrow. Because we have not had all the uncertainties clarified, I would call on you to vote against granting discharge for the Committee of the Regions’ implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2004. If there is a vote on the report, I would call on you to vote in favour of the amendments tabled by Mr Staes and myself with a view to obtaining the facts of the case. That is what we must do if we take seriously the demand for accountability, which is at the heart of the democratic process.
As rapporteur for the Committee on Budgetary Control, it was my job to work on the issue of granting discharge to ‘Other Institutions’, of which there are seven in total. I have found no reason for bringing the Ombudsman and the Data Protection Supervisor into question. Four of the remaining five institutions are open to criticism, but not of so serious a character that there is reason for questioning whether discharge should be granted. The Council, the European Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors and the European Economic and Social Committee are in this position. Where the Committee of the Regions is concerned, however, I find that further investigations are required before we can take a decision on the issue of granting discharge.
In the course of 2004, the European Economic and Social Committee had problems involving irregularities in relation to the reimbursement of members’ travelling expenses. We hope that this problem is now in the past. There have been problems with the Belliard I and II buildings, and I expect a full account of these in the Court of Auditors’ forthcoming report.
Where the Council is concerned, many of the risks are to be found, as usual, in administrative activities relating to the building projects in which the Council is involved. I want to take this opportunity to emphasise the advantages of renting buildings instead of engaging in such huge building projects ourselves. It would also be helpful if the Council were to come up with clearer definitions of, respectively, administrative and operational expenses.
The European Court of Justice’s internal audits were far from satisfactory during 2004. Its internal auditor also acted as the head of the ex-ante verification unit, which is quite simply unacceptable. Moreover, the internal auditor has not completed any of his investigations since he was appointed in 2003. Parliament expects to see energetic measures and strong improvements in this area.
The European Court of Justice’s massive building projects at present under way cannot be anything other than a cause of disquiet. It is therefore essential that a complete and detailed progress report on this project be made to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The fact that the Court does not at present require judges to declare their financial interests is unacceptable. Irrespective of whether or not there is at present any legal requirement for them to do so, the Court must prepare its own binding rules in this area. Regarding the use of official cars, Parliament again calls on the Court not to allow these to be used for private purposes.
Where the Court of Auditors is concerned, the fact that a handful of large Luxembourg-based accounting firms are in a dominant position when it comes to scrutinising the Court’s accounts is worrying, although Parliament appreciates that it is difficult for the Court to avoid this situation. It is therefore extremely important for there to be an open, fair and comprehensible tendering procedure."@en1
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