Brussels, 02/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Thursday 2 December, Ramona Manescu and Jorgo Chatzimarkakis called for pressure to be stepped up on the European Commission to shoulder its responsibility regarding the way funds paid to member states are spent. Member states are very often rightly criticised on the subject of errors due most of the time to administrative failure and irregularities in fund management. However, Manescu and Chatzimarkakis take the view that the Commission is responsible for this situation. Under fire from the Court of Auditors, the Commission must simplify its rules, establish the same rules for all member states and set structural funds and regional funds the same objectives.
Ramona Manescu (ALDE, Romania) noted the existence of a regulation but also of a problem - bad Commission management. The Commission should be more actively involved, and provide better oversight and in-depth control of what happens to funds paid out, as it is responsible for amounts distributed to member states. The Commission must take the matter seriously and, if there are some rules such as suspension, these rules should be flexible, simplified and correspond to one and the same audit model for all member states, and should be abided by, Manescu states, not agreeing at all with the idea that structural and cohesion funds be considered as aid. Aid is what is given to third countries while cohesion and structural funds go to the EU, said Ramona Manescu, whose report on good governance with regards the EU regional policy, procedures of assistance and control by the European Commission, will be adopted during the December 2010 plenary session of the European Parliament. She sought to be very clear saying they wished to avoid pointless controls, and adding that she did not understand the Commission which finds a problem but does not suggest anything to put it right.
Furthermore, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (ALDE, Germany), who is rapporteur on 2009 discharge, said good management is needed by member states and they must prove that spending is correct. With reference to the Declaration of Assurance for the 2009 Annual Report (DG Regio, signed by Director General Dirk Ahner), Chatzimarkakis criticised the fact that Ahner was aware of the existence of problems which would be detrimental to the interests of the institutions. Ahner gave his assurance that, for 38 programmes out of 79 concerning DG Regio, there was no reasonable assurance of lawfulness and regularity of operations in relation to the reimbursement of spending declared in 2009. For the 41 remaining programmes, substantial shortfalls were identified. Chatzimarkakis put these comments to Commissioner Johannes Hahn (regional policy), who replied he was unaware of the declaration. The MEP went on to conclude that that was the way the Community manages funds implemented by member states. He added that such a situation was unacceptable. (G.B./transl.jl)