Brussels, 18/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 16 March, the budgetary control committee of the European Parliament finished voting on the conditions for granting a discharge on the execution of the 2007 budget, and submitted several warnings to the Council and Commission in particular.
By adopting the report of Rapporteur Søren Søndergaard (EUL/NGL, Denmark) on the discharge for non-European Commission institutions, the budgetary control committee recommended that the plenary adjourn its decision on the discharge for executing the Council's budget for the 2007 tax year. Members of this committee referred to the Council's increasingly operational nature of expenditure, financed under the Council's administrative budget, in the fields of foreign affairs, security and defence policy, and justice and home affairs, and referring to the creation of a financial mechanism called Athena to administer the financing of "operations having military and defence implications", the budgetary control committee said that the "administrative expenditure of the Council ought to be scrutinized in the same way as that of the other European institutions as part of the discharge procedure". MEPs therefore regretted that the Council, unlike other institutions, does not submit an annual activity report to Parliament. By threatening to adjourn the EP's decision on the discharge of the Council budget, the rapporteur wants to provide the latter with the opportunity to communicate information on spending before the April plenary session when the EP votes on the discharge of the 2007 budget.
The Council does not very much appreciate the 1970 “gentleman's agreement” according to which the EP and Council refrain from checking implementation of their respective sections of the budget. Until then an informal meeting used to allow the two institutions to exchange (if necessary) information. This time, however, the budgetary control committee has said the Council must present itself to the former and reply in writing to a significant number of questions. The Council has criticised the EP's political manoeuvring to obtain the right of scrutiny over CFSP and ESDP activities.
The budgetary control committee is also proposing to delay the granting of the discharge to the European Police College for the same reason (insufficient provision of information). It has given full discharge to the other agencies and institutions on the execution of the budget.
Cocobu recommends Commission discharge
By adopting the report of Jean-Pierre Audy (EPP-ED, France), the budgetary control parliamentary committee proposed the plenary grant the Commission a discharge on the execution of the general European Union budget. After regretting that the European Court of Auditors had not been able to issue a "Declaration of Assurance" for the 14th consecutive year, on the regularity and legality of the underlying operations in many areas of spending (agriculture, cohesion, research, energy and transport, external aid, development, enlargement, education and citizenship), the report pointed out that the situation is improving but in “an insufficient and too slow a way”. In this context, the report requests the European Commission to provide proposals without delay in order to “reach the objective in the positive Declaration of Assurance (DAS)” as it had promised the European Parliament at the beginning of its mandate.
Bulgaria and Romania. MEPs voiced support for the temporary suspension of funding to Bulgaria and Romania and went even further by stating that, “the Commission disregarded the Copenhagen criteria and misled public opinion and Parliament about the readiness of these Member States to the detriment of the reputation of the Union and the steady development of the Member States in question".
Agriculture. The European Court of Auditors revealed that 20% of payments at final-beneficiary level audits turned out to be incorrect. MEPs consider the problems in Greece with the implementation of the Integrated Administration and Control System were considered to be "unacceptable".
Structural funds. The report takes note with great concern, at the Court of Auditors' estimate showing a rate of at least 11% of structural fund projects not being properly reimbursed.
Research. The error rate in research and technological development has gone down dramatically, to just over 2%.
EP spending. By approving the report of Paulo Casaca (PES, Portugal), Cocobu is suggesting that a discharge is granted for execution of the EP's budget. Cocobu noted that at the end of 2007, MEPs' voluntary pension fund had an actuarial deficit of €30.92 million at the end of 2007, and said that Parliament should "under no circumstances provide extra money out of the budget to cover the fund's deficit". MEPs asked the secretary-general to make an "overall analysis of all costs generated by the geographical dispersion of parliamentary activities in Strasbourg and Brussels". (L.C./transl.rh)