Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-05-10-Speech-2-013-000"
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"en.20110510.4.2-013-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, President-in-Office of the Council, you deserve a pat on the back. For the first time in years, the Council is attending this debate on the discharge of the budget. Congratulations, we really appreciate that.
Ladies and gentlemen, my assessment of the functioning of the European Development Fund may be strict, but I think that it is a fair one. I believe that my report considers a great many avenues for the better management of financial resources for development cooperation and I would therefore urge you to adopt my report with a large majority.
Ladies and gentlemen, EUR 22.6 billion, that is how much the 10th European Development Fund will spend in the 2008-2013 period. That makes the European Development Fund the EU’s most important financial instrument for development cooperation with the ACP countries. The 10th European Development Fund is also extremely important in terms of its financial commitment and, in terms of scope, it is 64% larger than its predecessor, the 9th European Development Fund.
I would like to make five comments.
First of all, so far, the European Development Fund has not been part of the EU’s ordinary budget. That is actually unacceptable because it interferes with democratic supervision, leads to a lack of responsibility and certainly does not help the transparency of funding. In my report, I remind the Commission that, during the discussions on the future financial framework, it has committed itself to ensuring that the European Development Fund becomes a truly integral part of the European budget. I hope that that will now be the case and I hope, President-in-Office of the Council, that you will send out the message to the Council and to Member States that, from 2014, the European Development Fund really must become an integral part of the Union budget. Obviously, that should not be taken to mean that this operation should be allowed to result in resources which are generally made available for development cooperation being cut.
Secondly, quantity is one thing, quality is another. As far as ordinary development cooperation is concerned, the European Commission has committed itself to spending 20% of the aid on primary and secondary education and on primary health care. In my report, I ask the Commission to do the same with regard to the European Development Fund. To focus, primarily, on primary and secondary education, health care and even to increase that amount to 25% of the total fund. In that respect, cooperation with NGOs, both local and European, is of vital importance.
Thirdly, allow me to comment on financial management. The European Court of Auditors has carried out an extremely thorough investigation of the financial management of the 8th, 9th and 10th European Development Funds, not only in its annual report but in a great many special reports, and made really good and really valuable comments. However, there are indeed some reasons for concern, such as the shortcomings the Court has found with regard to procurement procedures, ex-ante checks of the European Commission’s delegations and failing internal control systems in our partner countries. The Court of Auditors explicitly notes that this is not fraud, but shortcomings. I think that we need to take that on board. There are indeed far too many non-quantifiable errors.
Commissioner, I hope that you will take this up with your colleague. Something really needs to happen on that front.
My fourth comment is to do with budget aid (and it would be more fitting in a broader debate). Mr Charles Goerens is here with us; he is the rapporteur of the Committee on Development Cooperation for the Green Paper on Budget Aid. We all recognise that budget aid can be an important element for the improvement of development cooperation. However, it should not be regarded as a cure-all, because it also comes with a number of drawbacks. The positives are that transaction costs are low, that partner countries have an increased responsibility for themselves and that there is a better dialogue between partners and donors. At the same time, there is obviously the risk of embezzlement, of the misappropriation of funds. I can see this debate taking place many more times to come in this Parliament.
My fifth and last comment concerns the investment facility. The investment facility is a vehicle used by the European Investment Bank to divert loans to our partner countries. At the moment, this mechanism does not actually fall under the discharge, nor does it fall under the declaration of assurance of the Court of Auditors. That is actually not acceptable. We need to remedy a few things. What is positive in all this is that the representatives of the European Investment Bank and the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have had an extremely constructive debate. As a matter of fact, they have, for the first time ever, produced a report. There is a lot we can learn from that. There are a number of important comments in my report with respect to that. We are also entrusting a few tasks to the European Investment Bank and the European Commission. We are asking for better coordination of funds. European Investment Bank, European Commission, we are actually asking for an investigation into the activities of the European Investment Bank towards the end of September this year so that we can start the next discharge procedure with proper documentation. We are asking for greater involvement of local partners where the Investment Bank cofinances projects, we are asking for more direct and less theoretical reporting and we are asking for a general audit of all funds of the European Investment Bank."@en1
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