After six years of political pressure by the Group of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) the European Commission today finally showed some willingness towards ensuring more transparency and better accountability of the management of EU money by Member States. The long-standing ALDE request to the Commission asking to ensure that Member States produce annual summaries, originated in the unacceptably high error percentages found by the Court of Auditors in the national accounts, meaning that EU spending was not in line with the rules.
Commissioner Semeta (Taxation, and Audit) today committed the European Commission to better implement the agreement between Parliament, Commission and Council and thus to ensure that yearly declarations will be submitted by the Member States. These declarations will then be made available to the European Parliament for publication, subject to the application of the regulation 1049/2001 on public access to EU institutions.
This change of gear however could not yet convince Jan Mulder (VVD, Netherlands), ALDE spokesman on the 2010 discharge procedure. "The Court of Auditors issued a negative report for 17 years in a row - this in itself should be reason for Parliament to refuse discharge to the Commission. I don't think many national parliaments would accept such a situation from their governments. The Commissioner's statement is an important signal, although no specific reference was made to the inter institutional agreement that should have been implemented already six years ago. Now let's see what real change it will bring about in the next months. As long as we can not exactly assess how tax money is spent by Member States, who are managing 80 % of payments from the EU budget, it is impossible for ALDE to approve the accounts."
The European Parliament can only sanction the Commission although the Member States spend the bulk of the Commission's budget. Today it voted on 43 reports on discharge for EU institutions and Agencies for 2010. The group of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) decided to abstain from voting on the Commission's budget 2010, but will closely monitor any improvements in the controlling of the EU's budget of around 140 billion euro each year.
Against the opinion of the Parliament rapporteur, ALDE approved the accounts of the European Environmental Agency EEA. Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (D66, Netherlands), ALDE spokesman on the 2010 discharge for the agencies, stresses that EEA year after year sets the example of how an agency should be managed. Accusations suggesting conflicts of interest have all been rebutted so that there is no reason at all for not granting discharge. Gerbrandy: "It looks like there is a hidden political agenda directed towards the director of the EEA. However Parliament should not be chasing ghosts and grant the EEA the discharge it is entitled to. "
ALDE group however did postpone the discharge of the Food Safety Agency. "EFSA has been challenged over the previous years regarding possible conflicts of interest. We are also awaiting a report of the Court of Auditors on this issue. Postponing the discharge will create the opportunity to discuss this special report in Parliament and to go into detail regarding possible conflicts of interest. After that debate we can decide to grant the discharge".
