29/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - "Despite these deficiencies, the reform of the discharging procedure for accounts has been a success" felt the Court of Auditors in a special opinion on the implementation of this reform. As a positive point, the Court feels that "the requirements in terms of auditing and certification have been significantly strengthened in the direction of the Member States' responsibilities". On the side of the deficiencies, the Court notes that "nothing indicates that the new discharge procedure has enabled to shorten the waiting periods". Let us recall that the auditing of accounts is the operation through which the Commission checks the spending made by the Member States under the Feoga-Garantie and possible recuperates certain amounts. It consists of the annual auditing procedure, which only covers the precision of the accounts of the paying bodies of the Member States, and the audit, said of "conformity", which covers the legality and true nature of the transactions. The report is published on the Court's website: http: //http://www.eca.eu.int/fr/rs/2000/rs22_00fr.pdf.