Brussels, 28/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - During next week's plenary session, the European Parliament should not only grant the European Commission discharge for execution of the 1999 budget but also give its assent to the account clearance procedure. This is the proposal made in the Freddy Blak report (PES, Denmark), concerning the discharge on execution of the Union's general budget for 1999, adopted on Tuesday by the parliamentary committee on budgetary control (15 votes for, 3 against and 1 abstention). The rapporteur managed to have adopted nearly all the compromise amendments that he proposed to the members of his committee. The European Commission has shown itself to be very cooperative, far more so than the Santer Commission, said Mr Blak, to demonstrate the "excellent atmosphere" of work, unlike the far more conflictual atmosphere reigning during the 1998 discharge vote. German Christian Democrat Gabriele Stauner, whose report on 1998 discharge follow-up was also adopted the same day by Cocobu, hoped that the Commission would make an official declaration in which it expresses regret and "condemns" what happened during the treatment of the Fléchard affair. "The adequate treatment of the Fléchard case was to be the cornerstone for granting discharge, but the Commission did not give a satisfactory reply to the questions put to it during hearings", Ms Stauner regretted.
While taking a stance in favour of granting 1999 budget discharge, the Cocobu voices considerable criticism. It calls for "revision of the framework agreement", on access to documents, "in the light of experience gained during the 1999 discharge procedure". The Commission is reproached for not having communicated to the EP the content of information forwarded to the committee of independent experts in 1999. The rapporteur casts doubt on the usefulness of the overall insurance declaration for 1999, as long as figures are not given precisely. He notes that the Court of Auditors, which appeals for considerable resources, has not forgotten the substantial and official rate of errors in recent years, which would have allowed the Parliament to judge whether the question by the Union's Committee on Budgets is or is not effective. The Cocobu recalls that the overall rate of substantial errors in the Union's budget was 4% in 1994, 5.9% in 1995 and 5.4% in 1996, and that it has not been published for the following financial periods. It therefore invites the Court of Auditors to transform the declaration of assurance into an instrument allowing discharge and budgetary authorities to compare and control progress accomplished in financial matters. The parliamentary committee deplores the fact that the Council and Parliament had confronted the Commission with tasks for which it had "neither ability nor human resources", such as the Community surveillance mission in the Balkans, the programme for reconstruction for Central America after the Hurricane Mitch and food aid to Russia in 1999.
Lessons to be learnt from the Fléchard affair
In an amendment drafted after the hearings of the five Commissioners involved in the Fléchard affair, the parliamentary committee notes that OLAF, the legal service of the Parliament, the Court of Auditors and the Committee of Independent Experts "cast doubt as to the legal base of the decision taken by the Commission to reduce the penalty to 3,003,750 ecus". It deplores the fact that the Commission had taken an ad hoc decision (without providing for a sufficient legal base, without carrying out a definitive inquiry into fraud and without involving the college or its relevant member) on the basis of a meeting of its senior officials, the minutes of which have disappeared. Nonetheless, Cocobu welcomes the fact that the Commission had "conceded, for the first time, to Parliament that the management of the Fléchard affair invited criticism" and admitted that a more detailed investigation should have been carried out.
Concerning other frauds in the agricultural sector, the Cocobu adapted an amendment urging the Commission to carry out, in concert with the Court of Auditors, an audit on the treatment of export refunds by the Danish directorate for food, fisheries and food processing. On 1 February 2001, Denmark is said to have collected, for export refunds, guarantees representing EUR 300 million "which seems far too high". In the Spanish flax affair, the question is raised on why the Spanish authorities took inadequate measures, while the Commission (Financial control and DG Agriculture) and OLAF had pointed out weaknesses in the control systems. OLAF is called upon to pursue its inquiries on similar irregularities committed in the flax sector in other Member States. Cocobu also returns to the affair concerning adulterated dairy products (contamination of 35,200 tonnes of butter orchestrated by an international criminal association).
The rapporteur calls on the Commission to: - extend to 36 months the period for account clearance (currently 24 months); - revise in this context the composition of the conciliation body; - propose a legal basis allowing the Commission to apply rising financial corrections to the Member States guilty of repeated weaknesses in the control systems. The COCOBU takes stock of the substantial improvements brought by the new regulation 1260/99 relating to the Structural Funds and counts on the Commission for it to carry out the necessary financial corrections when the Member States are responsible for irregularities.