Debates

Tuesday, 22 October 2019 - Strasbourg

Discharge 2017: EU general budget - European Council and Council (debate)

  Matthew Patten (NI). – Mr President, Mr Zdechovský was kind enough to refer to the UK in terms of issues of this matter. I want to make a couple of points that are not about democracy per se, but about the responsibilities of democracy. Transparency is one of the essential ingredients in terms of giving trust to our voters.

Throughout this debate, we have heard the key issue of transparency come round and round again, and I am not surprised, given that we are talking about EUR 562 million that has not been accounted for to this Parliament. The three things the European Parliament and the European Council really need to reflect on are the following. The first thing, there needs to be external accounting for these matters; at the moment, the internal accounting procedure is not working. The second thing is that the executive must appear before the committees. I cannot imagine a situation where the executive is refusing to appear before the committees of this Parliament. The third thing is conflicts of interest around sponsorship; those must be accounted for. Our voters need transparency.