Brussels, 28/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - By adopting, on Tuesday, the report by Gabriele Stauner (EPP/ED, German) on the follow-up to the 1998 discharge (17 votes for, 3 against), the Parliamentary Budgetary Control Committee (COCOBU) reproached the Commission for continuing not to pass on to the EP confidential information (and this despite the conclusion of the framework agreement on information between the two institutions), while this would have allowed to better fulfil the checks it must carry out in the framework of this procedure. It reaffirms wanting to benefit from access to documents and secret information at least on an equal footing to the Court of Auditors.
The COCOBU deplores that the Commission has not taken adequate measures for the Court of Auditors to grant the European executive a declaration of positive assurance (document testifying to the good financial management of the budget) at the latest for 2003 and that it has not renounced its intention to remove independent financial control. On this last point, the COCOBU considers it necessary that the internal audit services can control the audits carried out within the Directorates General.
The MEPs also return to the procedure before the Belgian courts in the PerryLux case, by questioning the Commission over the reasons for which it has not yet reacted. The rapporteur nevertheless welcomes that Commissioner Neil Kinnock has announced, last 21 February, that the administrative investigation procedures have been initiated to cast light over the circumstances in which contracts have been given to another advisor of former Commissioner Edith Cresson, who is thought to have played a role in the Elf/Leuna affair.