Brussels, 01/08/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a paper addressed to the European Commission in February, the Court of Auditors again criticised the reliability of accounting controls over the European Union's budget, reveals The Financial Times in its Wednesday edition. The paper, written by a Court of Auditors Director, Colin Maynard, gives greater detail on the failings of the accounting system (especially the computer system, SINCOM 2), failings that were already pointed out in the Court's 1999 and 2000 Annual Reports, in the chapter devoted to Statement of Assurance. The Commission will make a detailed proposal by the end of the year aimed at modernising the system and the accounting framework, the aim of which will be above all to substantially improve the functioning of the computer system in question (see EUROPE of 25 July, p.9).
According to The Financial Times, the paper states that the Commission's accounting system presents "obvious risks as regards its reliability" which stem in particular from its "lack of security". The Commission had already been warned about these problems "but to date has not taken any remedial action", the report reads, specifying that "no account has been taken of generally accepted accounting standards, mainly double-entry book-keeping". The author of the report, says The Financial Times, also states that the "final data it produces may be inconsistent, so that a single line of expenditure can have two different values". With reference to the many attempts made to coordinate the various elements of the system, the report states that "failures abound and are a waste of public funds" … controls in the system were inadequate and this meant it was impossible to "present reliable accounting data on the amounts advanced to third parties".
The FT article also reactivated the polemic on the Commission's former Chief Accountant at DG Budget, Marta Andreasen, who had expressed criticism about the reliability of the Commission's accounts. The latter has now initiated disciplinary proceedings against Ms Andreasen, who was suspended in May after a serious disagreement with her hierarchy and Commissioner Michaele Schreyer. Recruited in January 2002 on the basis of a curriculum vitae considered to be partly untrue, Ms Andreasen is reproached for having been unable to draft a communication on accounting reform and for having sought to bypass her director general in order to impose her views on the rest of the administration. We recall that Ms Andreasen had referred her case to the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control, which did not wish to support her in her action (see EUROPE of 5 June).