Exchange of views between Cocobu and Commissioners Barnier and Diamantopoulou for preparing discharge work on Budget 2000

Brussels, 20/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Commissioners Michel Barnier and Anna Diamantopoulou were invited on Tuesday to discuss regional policy with the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control (Cocobu) to allow the European Parliament to obtain useful information for its work of discharge on execution of the Budget 2000. The members of the Commission sought to reassure MEPs about the future of this policy, as well as on the problems identified in the latest annual report of the Court of Auditors, such as the under-utilisation of appropriations and the amounts awaiting clearance (RAL). The Court of Auditors, for its part, spoilt the measured optimism of Commissioners when one of them pointed out that the situation regarding structural funds did not improve in 2000. Furthermore, some MEPs reproached the Court of Auditors for having provided figures (on the error rate) to Member States and the Commission only.

• Under-utilisation of appropriations. Mr Barnier explained that the "under-utilisation" of appropriations in 2000 was predictable and that it had even been foreseen by the Council and Parliament as, in the interinstitutional agreement approved after the Berlin Summit in March 1999, the reprogramming of the commitment appropriations over the following years had been foreseen for the year 2000, as commitments had not been a carried out because of the delay in adopting programmes. As far as payment appropriations are concerned, he pointed out that "in order to improve the situation and reduce the gap between provision and execution, I have asked for nothing to be carried over from the year 2001 to the year 2002". This would be the very first time this has happened.

He recalled, moreover, the two commitments that he had taken to improve budgetary execution for 2000-2006 and reduce the delays during the programming period 2004-2006 during which the EU will take in new Member States: - (1) simplification of procedures: "What we manage to do to simplify procedures to the benefit of the new members, I hope to do again for all Member States in the new agenda in 2007", he said, before specifying that concrete measures would be proposed by the autumn, including, if necessary, modifications of the general regulations on structural funds. He added that he had, for example, noted that the delay on Objective 2 is mainly due to the time needed to negotiate eligible areas; (2) anticipation of negotiations: he pointed out that he would propose, from end 2003, new guidelines on structural funds (at the time of the adoption of the third cohesion report), and that the programming documents would be discussed in 2005 and 2006 so that, at the beginning of the year 2007, "work may begin on the ground".

• Awaiting clearance (RAL = reste à liquider). Mr Barnier sought to relativise the importance of the RAL although he did recognise its absolute value. He specified that, between 1994 and 2000, the RAL had not grown worse "in relative terms" and that a time-lag of one or two years was still "reasonable". He recalled in passing that the RAL was "far lower than that noted in other sectors". He also said it was necessary to remain "vigilant", especially concerning what he called the "accumulation of stocks of old projects", that is, those dating back to before 1994. He thus undertook to ensure that appropriations would be cleared by June 2002 or March 2003 (at the end of the period for presenting programmes). He made it clear that this RAL, which stood at one point at EUR 1.7 billion (350 dossiers), was reduced to EUR 400 million (50 dossiers) at the end of the year 2001. He went on to add that he had to show proof of realism and pragmatism by simply accepting 2-3% of the requests for extending the time limits for eligibility of the programmes.

Commissioner Diamantopoulou, for his part, pointed out that, in his sphere of competence, improvements had been made in financial management (12 cases of error in 1999 and 6 in 2000, according to the figures which, she said, came from the Court of Auditors), collaboration with the Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), and assessment of Member State controls (16 controls were carried out by the Commission in 2002 as opposed to 2 in 2000). She added that, out of the programmes dating back to before 1999, 332 dossiers remained pending (for the sum of EUR 120 million), of which nearly half were due to legal problems that "make conclusion of the dossiers difficult".

Unlike the two Commissioners, Jesus Lazaro Cuenca, Director of the Statement of Assurance (SOA) section of the Court of Auditors, felt that, taking the structural funds as a whole, "the situation did not improve in 2000" and that the Court was particularly concerned by the magnitude of errors discovered at the end of the programming period. In his view, such errors would not be corrected and would even tend to increase.

Further to the presentation by Ms Diamantopoulou, the Chair of Cocobu, Dietmut Theato (CDU), followed notably by Gabriele Stauner (CSU), Christopher Heaton-Harris (EPP-ED, British), and Jan Mulder (ELDR, the Netherlands) felt that it was not acceptable for the Commission to get figures from the Court of Auditors on the percentage of errors in the 2000 Budget since Parliament had not yet received the figures itself, despite being responsible for granting the discharge. Commissioner Michaele Schreyer said that the Court of Auditors had decided to abandon this way of calculating error since it gave no indication of progress made in any particular area by Member States or the Commission, asserting that the Court had not provided her with any such figures. She added that only the Netherlands agreed with such quantitative methods.