Brussels, 23/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - A further hearing will be required to formulate more precise recommendations on the 2006 budget discharge for the European Commission to put to the European Parliament (see also EUROPE 9569). At their meeting on 21-22 January, the members of the EP budgetary control committee felt that the responses given by the Commission on the management of the structural funds were “unsatisfactory” at this stage, according to an EP press release.
The coordinators of the Budgetary Control Committee proposed calling Commissioners Danuta Hübner (Regional Policy) and Vladimir Špidla (Social Affairs) back to provide further information on the management of the structural funds in 2006. The new hearing is scheduled for 25 February. The Court of Auditors' annual report revealed that errors had been committed in 12% of structural funds, amounting to €3.89 billion.
European Anti-Fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas met the members of the Parliament budgetary control committee on Tuesday 22 January. His appearance shed little light on the reasons for these problems although he welcomed the “best statement of assurance ever issued by the Court of Auditors”. He was also confident that the sums recovered would cancel out the 12% of errors.
Dan Jørgensen (PES, Denmark), the rapporteur on the 2006 discharge, said that the replies given by the European Commission remained inadequate, and not just on structural funds. He expressed disappointment at the “2000 pages of documents on European aid distributed in Iraq”, which had, in any case been forwarded, late to Parliament.
The rapporteur asked whether the Commission supported the idea of “national declarations” (to certify the proper use of EU funds), a hobby horse of Parliament's over the last three years. Commissioner Kallas said he was personally in favour of such declarations but admitted that progress was slow and that some member states were against such a move.
Jan Mulder (ALDE, Netherlands) stressed that the progress made in recent years on supervising the management of EU expenditure has been very modest. He believed the Commission was “still far from the goal laid down by President Barroso: to receive a positive DAS” (statement of assurance) by 2009.
Alexander Stubb (EPP-ED, Finland) called for a resolution of the endemic problem of “outstanding commitments” (projects for which committed funds have not been paid out).
The extraordinary hearing on the structural funds, if confirmed for 25 February in Brussels, should trigger significant progress, noted the committee. In his closing words, Jørgensen warned, “Failing clear answers to the simple questions we are asking, a postponement of the Commission's discharge seems to me unavoidable”. (L.C.)