Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-23-Speech-1-141"
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"en.20061023.18.1-141"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I very much welcome Mr Casaca’s report, and, as a member of the Committee on Regional Development, I have to say how very embarrassing I find the dramatic increase in frauds and irregularities.
The financial impact on structural policy measures went up from EUR 480 million in 2003 to EUR 694 million in 2004, the last reported year, in which a good 70% of the misspent funds were attributable to structural policy. To that we must also add a grey area. If we are less than fully able to get back the money wrongly paid out – as this own-initiative report says we are – then that shows the EU in a bad light. It is no small thing to have outstanding debts totalling EUR 3 billion.
This is not, however, just about the financial loss to the EU. If the recovery of these funds is less than efficient, others will be encouraged to misuse money granted in aid. Whether money has been obtained by deliberate fraud or paid out in error, the recovery of it must run smoothly and efficiently, and even if the procedure may appear disproportionate in individual cases, the Member States must apply it, so I call on them to proceed with greater rigour and coordinate their public prosecutors’ offices accordingly, while also asking them to make room for the European anti-fraud authority OLAF to become more involved in the proceedings. As for the Commission, I call on it to do more to make the misuse of subsidies a cause of public disgrace.
Europe needs transparency, and so does its system of grants and subsidies. Where funds are used for purposes other than those for which they were originally intended, we have to put a stop to it, and for that we need more openness. I thank the rapporteur for helping to bring that about."@en1
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