Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-03-Speech-2-388"
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"en.20090203.22.2-388"2
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"− I could, of course, speak for at least one hour on these issues. Our doings in this area are reflected in the ongoing discharge process and in many communications from the Commission, in many discharge resolutions and in many speeches in the Budgetary Control Committee. So, firstly, I can assure you that we are dealing very seriously with these issues and the situation is improving.
The system is as follows. The budgetary authority, which means Parliament, authorises the Commission to use money and which money can be used to implement Community policies. There is a special spending programme, which has its own legal basis. Parliament also designs this legal basis, so the rules are decided by the budgetary authority relating to the budget.
Next comes implementation, where there are different layers. One of these is, of course, the Commission, which is the main actor responsible for implementing the budget. Our activities in improving financial governance are reflected in our annual activity reports, and the Court of Auditors has evaluated that they are getting better and better and more adequately reflect the situation.
This is one internal part. Another is the control and auditing systems, which have also been strengthened in recent years, for instance in internal policies in the research family, where we have increased the control and auditing staff. What is also important in this particular part is that there is shared management. Much also depends on the contribution of, and efforts made by, Member States to cut back their errors and to avoid the misuse of money. There is also improvement in this area. A completely new instrument has been introduced – the so-called annual summary of all reports of paying agencies. These were carefully analysed for the first time last year and this is now being done again.
So the situation is improving. The Court of Auditors’ report, which also has been greatly changed from the beginning of our period, now quantifies the changes. This quantification of changes also shows that there has been an improvement. So European money is quite rigidly managed – even too rigidly in some areas. We can show what has been done. But we can also clearly say that this is far from perfect. This is a huge machine which must work smoothly. According to the Court of Auditors’ estimations, in most areas, 98% of all transactions are carried out without errors. In the Structural Funds, this is almost 90%, so the vast majority of transactions will not include errors, and any errors will be corrected. The number of correction decisions relating to the Structural Funds has increased tremendously during this period. I can, of course, provide you with a lot of numbers if needed. These are some indications, but of course it is clear that this does not cover the whole of the answer to the simple question: ‘How do you manage the European budget?’"@en1
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