Brussels, 02/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - Already dissatisfied with the European Commission proposal on the new inter-institutional agreement (EUROPE will return to this subject), the European Parliament has warned that it will find it difficult to adopt the financial framework for 2007-13 without a commitment from Member States to agree to provide national declarations certifying to good housekeeping in regard to the EU budget. In a resolution adopted on 2 February at its plenary, the European Parliament declared that without significant progress towards effective implementation by Member States of their control and surveillance systems, the Commission would not be able to obtain reliable information on the EU's budget accounts.
The EP reiterated its request (part of its recommendations of 12 April 2005 which accompanied the decision on the discharge for 2003) that every Member States presented a formal ex-ante declaration, as well as an annual ex-post declaration providing assurances of improving the implementation of supervisory and controls systems for Community spending. MEPs consider that an unqualified Statement of an Assurance (SOA) from the Court of Auditors is “impossible to achieve without significant improvements in Member States' implementation of supervisory and control systems”. Parliament will be requesting the Council to review its conclusions in order to pave the way for a “constructive dialogue” with it on new financial perspectives and to implement effective supervisory and control systems on EU expenditure in Member States “which is what European taxpayers expect”.