Brussels, 06/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - The fate of the liaison committee for voluntary NGOs (CLONG) at the Union will be sealed on Tuesday after an Extraordinary General Assembly, convened in Brussels on 10 and 11 April. The representatives of the national CLONG platforms will be invited to decide either to liquidate CLONG or to take up its activities in the context of restructuring or in another form of organisation. The news was confirmed on Friday to the press by CLONG Secretary General James Mackie. The final audit report from Ernst & Young on the presumed bad financial management has been forwarded to CLONG. The missing accounting documents, recently supplied by the Committee, allowed auditors to cut the amount that the Commission should recover in half, that is EUR 565,000 as opposed to EUR 1 million in the ininitial estimations of the interim audit report, on the basis of which the Commission cut funds to CLONG, blocking EUR 800,000 already committed. James Mackie said they were unable to pay this amount and that, if this were the Commission's last word, they would have no choice but to close their accounts. He expressed the hope that the lack of clarity in the rules governing the management of the incriminated contracts could still be taken into account. In his view, several national platforms are now assured that they could contribute to the reimbursement of the amounts, but most are currently in a difficult budgetary situation. The Commission's proposal to stagger payment of the sums due over four years was appreciated, but we do not wish to be strangled for too long either, stressed James Mackie, who was in favour of rapid repayment. Answering questions on the conditions required for continuing CLONG's activities, he cited the release of sums held by the Commission (the Court of First Instance in Brussels is to give a preliminary ruling on 7 May on the complaint introduced by CLONG - see EUROPE of 30 March, p.12) and the allocation of the budget for 2001. If the General Assembly were to choose restructuring, the new structure would be totally independent of the financing of European institutions.