President. The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0360/2003) by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the discharges to be given for the financial year 2001 to: 1. the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (C5-0102/2003 – 2003/2046(DEC)) 2. the European Environment Agency (C5-0098/2003 – 2003/2044(DEC)) 3. the Translation Centre for the bodies of the European Union (C5-0100/2003 – 2003/2045(DEC)) 4. the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (C5-0096/2003 – 2003/2043(DEC)) 5. the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (C5-0094/2003 – 2003/2042(DEC)).

  Blak (GUE/NGL), rapporteur. – (DA) Mr President, this is the first time that we are to give discharge to these five agencies, and it is a new situation to which both parties must accustom themselves. The agencies must firstly be responsible to Parliament, and that entails obligations.

I have had a constructive dialogue with several of the agencies. I have had good, profitable meetings with the Working Environment Agency in Bilbao, the Monitoring Centre on Racism in Vienna, the Environment Agency in Copenhagen and, in particular, the Business Education Centre in Turin. All these agencies deserve special praise for their very proactive approach. I wish to recommend that we give discharge to all the agencies concerned. We have no major, outstanding problems with the individual agencies.

We do, however, have an outstanding problem with the Environment Agency which has had several contracts with firms that have also had contracts with Eurostat firms that are at the moment being investigated by the Commission’s internal auditing service for involvement in the Eurostat scandal. The internal auditing service’s final report confirms that the Environment Agency’s contracts with these firms are very worrying. The service has promised to investigate the matter more closely, and that is something we are obviously pleased about.

It is generally true to say that all the agencies are in a transitional phase, and they must adjust to the new Financial Regulation. The different agencies have chosen different models, but what is common to all the agencies is that they themselves are now responsible for financial control. There will no longer be external, independent ex ante control of the agencies. That is something we in Parliament have accepted as part of the new Financial Regulation.

I am, however, concerned that a gap in control will come about. The Commission’s internal auditing service has absolutely no resources for looking at the individual transactions. Mr Muis made this very clear at a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control. The internal auditing service has no resources at all for investigating the control procedures in the agencies.

The Court of Auditors carries out very few control checks. We are therefore very dependent upon the agencies’ internal control operating properly. It will be up to the future discharge draftsmen to assess whether the system will work in practice. I want, however, right now to sound a warning. The agencies will have no controllers. An internal auditor, functioning as a consultant, is excellent now at the beginning, when the agencies are to set up new systems, but it is much better in the long term to have a controller rather than a consultant.

Parliament must have more influence on the appointment of the agencies’ directors, and I am therefore pleased that we are asking the Commission to produce a proposal, something that is to be done before December of this year. That is something we approved unanimously in the committee.

The agencies have had many important tasks transferred to them, so we must also ensure that they are led by competent people. I am therefore in favour of Parliament’s being consulted on the appointment of the directors. I am not perhaps as much in favour as some of my fellow MEPs of Parliament’s approving all the directors in turn, for we should then be attaching too much importance to the agencies. We do not, of course, even approve the Commissioners on a one-by-one basis, but if, for example, my esteemed fellow MEP’s, Mr Bösch’s, proposal that we should be involved in appointing them directly were to go through, I should have absolutely nothing against that. I would, however, recommend us to vote in favour of the amendment by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, proposing that Parliament be consulted but that it be the Commission that takes the decision. I am well aware that my fellow MEPs may perhaps be rather opposed to this amendment, believing that the Commission would be given too much power if it had to decide by itself, but I do in actual fact believe that it is primarily the Commission’s task to appoint its own people.

We must not get involved in too many internal micromanagement decisions. We must instead devote our energies to monitoring the Commission, and that is something for which there is of course an absolute need in view of the way in which the Eurostat scandal has developed and the way in which all the Commissioners are disclaiming any form of political responsibility and are blaming the system.

Basically, we should ask ourselves whether, in the end, we are good enough to control these agencies and whether we, generally speaking, have need for them all. This is an issue concerning which they have agreed to produce a cost-benefit analysis. I should, then, like to conclude by saying that the Business Development Centre in Turin has suggested that it might itself easily undertake more tasks, instead of our setting about establishing more agencies. Let us listen to what it says, and let us hope that the Commission will make a point of listening to ourselves.

  Bolkestein, Commission. Mr President, the Commission is committed to satisfy, as far as possible, Parliament's requests regarding recurrent issues such as Commission proposals aiming at fostering better functioning of Community bodies. Decentralised Community bodies have specific missions according to their respective founding regulations. Any modification and/or addition of tasks would require an amendment to the legal acts setting up the agency, which requires legislative procedure to be followed, in some cases falling under co-decision. The Commission considers the composition of the administrative boards of agencies to be a cross-cutting issue which should be addressed in the follow-up to its communication on the operating framework for the European regulatory agencies.

In view of enlargement, the communication argues in favour of an administrative board of reduced size with a composition reflecting the balance between the executive functions at Community level and the expertise of Member States' executives.

The Commission is expecting a reaction to this proposal from Council and Parliament before deciding on its final line. In this communication the Commission proposed that a director should be appointed, depending on the case, by the management board or by the Commission. Parliament should be involved in this appointment procedure. At the moment this document is under consideration by the European Parliament and by Council. A possible action in this field ought to be undertaken in the light of the forthcoming discussions with those institutions. As regards the internal auditor proposal, according to the Financial Regulation, the Commission's internal auditor shall exercise exactly the same powers in the agencies receiving Community financial support as he does within the Commission.

Only two agencies which do not receive subsidies from the Commission are not concerned, those at Angers and at Alicante.

As regards the proposal to use the European Foundation for Training's expertise in relation to programmes such as Tempus and Erasmus Mundus, according to the new general Financial Regulation, the Commission can in fact call for technical assistance to be delegated to existing agencies.

However, recourse to an agency does not relieve the Commission of its obligations under the Treaty, in particular, to implement the budget under its own responsibility. It must therefore be able closely to circumscribe the action of the body responsible for technical assistance tasks and maintain real control over its operation and, in particular, its governing bodies. The governing bodies of the decentralised agencies are composed of representatives of the Member States: the Commission is in a minority and there are questions as to whether this enables it to exercise the requisite level of accountability and control.

In accordance with the provisions of the framework regulation on executive agencies, the Commission is at present examining the creation of a dedicated agency to assist in the implementation of Community programmes in the field of education and culture, such as Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Youth etc.

A cost-benefit analysis is being carried out with the help of external experts, also taking into account the functions and mandate of the European Training Foundation, the localisation of technical assistance functions for all these programmes will be decided by the Commission next year in the light of the results of the cost-benefit analysis and, in particular, the considerations of effectiveness, efficiency, control and accountability.

The Commission will endeavour to follow up on all these issues as well as resolutions from the European Parliament in due time.

  Jöns (PSE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs I am pleased that today’s agenda also includes the discharge of the Agency for Safety and Health at Work. This meets our central demand from last year, namely that there should be an individual discharge procedure for all decentralised agencies, thereby at last having equal treatment for the agencies. My committee is of course in favour of discharge for the agency in Bilbao, just as is the Committee on Budgetary Control. We therefore also agree with the verdict of the Court of Auditors, the Commission and the Council.

Let me say a few words about this Agency, which was created in 1997. Bilbao has now become the driving force in the field of safety and health at work. I need only mention its outstanding work in implementing the special programme for SMEs in 2001 and 2002. The splendid work it has done was also confirmed by an external evaluation. It was therefore only logical that in our resolution on the Community strategy for health and safety at work for the period 2002-2006 in October last year we called on the Commission to prepare a multiannual programme for small and medium-sized enterprises in the future. It is of course clear that there must in future too be the best possible coordination between the agencies in Bilbao and Dublin. Even though there are no grounds for criticism from our point of view, we welcome the fact that the two agencies have concluded a specific cooperation agreement in order to improve complementarity and banish all danger of overlapping in their work. But we shall remain very vigilant here, especially in the light of enlargement and a possible redefinition of agency policy.

  Heaton-Harris (PPE-DE). – Mr President, I cannot tell you how excited I am to be here this evening to talk on behalf of the PPE-DE Group on this subject. I can see that it is a subject that brings great excitement to the rest of the parliamentarians and indeed the massive audience that we have here tonight. One actually wonders whether these late-night sessions put our European taxpayers’ money to good use.

I shall bend over backwards to do my bit and I will start by giving thanks to the rapporteur for all the work he has put into this. I welcome the fact that the new Financial Regulation gives us the power to scrutinise these agencies’ accounts and I also welcome the cooperative way in which they all worked with the European Parliament in this process.

Because of this autonomy from the normal management framework of the Commission, the choice of director, I believe, is a crucially important one. The appointment must be by open process and must involve the European Parliament. Indeed, Parliament should have the right to give its assent to such appointments and that is why the PPE-DE Group will vote to reject the Liberal amendment. Although it contains some interesting ideas about the structure of hearings in the Parliament, it only proposes to give the European Parliament consultative status. The PPE part of the PPE-DE Group is in favour of discharge for the agencies for numerous reasons, many of which I do not understand, considering in general terms that the state of the Commission’s accounts is just a pile of pants – I am using colloquialisms to give the interpreters a test at this time in the evening.

Although the bulk of the PPE Group is for discharge, there are, however, some concerns that we would like to lay on the table for the future.

We want to ensure that there will always be the highest management standards, in particular by these agencies cooperating fully with OLAF, by sharing best practice amongst themselves – because many of the management challenges are very similar – and by ensuring that their boards are an effective instrument to hold management to account and are not just a bureaucratic and cosmetic gesture. Some boards are already too big, especially that of the Agency for Safety and Health at Work, and enlargement risks making this worse. If boards become too big to assume their responsibilities in practice, agencies become vulnerable to become private fiefdoms – an example of which we have seen in Eurostat.

We would like to see people cooperating closely to avoid duplication – for example, the Agency for Safety and Health at Work and the Foundation for the Improvement of Working and Living Conditions. I think the Commission should look at this. The highest standards of financial management should be ensured in particular by strengthening internal audit capacities. We would like to see the European Court of Auditors conducting more checks.

I thank the rapporteur for all his work. The British Conservative delegation – the hopefully ever-growing DE – will not be voting to grant discharge, but the PPE will be doing so, and we thank you for all your work.

  Bösch (PSE). – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Blak on his report. I agree with the essence of what Mr Heaton-Harris has said. The new Financial Regulation makes it possible to include the Agency for Safety and Health at Work, the Environment Agency, the Translation Centre, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in the European Parliament’s discharge procedure for the first time. I expressly welcome the fact that all the agencies are now discharged by Parliament, as the most recent cases of internal irregularities in the Commission clearly show how important it is to have ongoing checks of the institutions.

This innovation is doubtless important, but can be only the first step. A second innovation, an equally essential requirement, is that Parliament must be given a power of codecision in the appointment of directors. It is a contradiction for Parliament to have a say in appointing the ombudsman and the Commission President, while having no such right in respect of the agencies. We know there is a tendency for agencies to proliferate. There are more and more of them. These agencies are evidently to be given their own legal personality. As a Parliament, therefore, as taxpayers’ representatives, we must insist on having a power of codecision in them, in the way they are appointed. I have had a printout made of the various agencies we have at the moment. There is a first generation, to which Thessaloniki and Dublin belong, then a second generation with Copenhagen, Turin and I do not know who else, agencies not receiving a subsidy from the new budget, which you have already mentioned, Alicante and Angers, Codecision EP and Council, Brussels, Brussels temporarily. That is all those agencies like the European Food Safety Authority or the European Maritime Safety Agency, where they have said they will do something but they do not yet know where or when or how. That is an offence against Europe’s taxpayers. That is not addressed to you, but we do of course know that these agencies will have to start work somewhere sometime, and the Member States have proclaimed at the tops of their voices that they will, but they do not know when, they do not know where and they do not know how much it will cost. We have to be concerned about that, and the Social Democrats in this House, like the Christian Democrats, as Mr Heaton-Harris has said, will be insisting that we have a power of codecision here and we shall be pressing very hard for it. Reiterated congratulations, by the way, to Mr Blak on his report.

  Santos (PSE). – (PT) Mr President, I too am concerned that there is so little interest in discussing this type of matter, but I wonder whether this is a consequence of the way in which our activities are timetabled or of our approach to these matters. Ultimately, what is at stake is basically the use of taxpayers’ money.

I therefore believe that the European Parliament’s discharge of the budget must always allow for meaningful political debate. Fortunately, this has to some extent happened – quite recently – thereby contributing to the credibility of Community budgetary policy. Our examination of the budget of the five agencies that are the subject of this report should be seen in the context of these objectives and is geared towards achieving these priorities. All of the report’s proposals to grant discharge are accompanied by Parliamentary motions for resolutions and it is precisely in these motions for resolution that Parliament must exercise its political power. It can do so by drawing up recommendations or by expressing the hope that the activities of the agencies take a particular direction, both as regards the need to improve internal operations and supervision and the urgent need to increase their effectiveness in undertaking these activities.

The report makes various observations and suggestions – which I will not list, because I have so little time – praising the words and the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the European Agency responsible for health and safety in the workplace. There is, however, one aspect of a general nature that I believe warrants particular mention. This is the report’s proposal to change the composition of the agencies’ boards of administration, so as to ensure that they have more of a role. There are many financial reasons for such action, and in some cases operational reasons, which would mean that these boards could not function if they were larger than a certain size. Symptomatically, these concerns arise, as the Commissioner’s speech has just made clear, at a time when we are rapidly approaching a process of welcoming – at political level – new countries into the Community family. Without denying the validity of these concerns, the European Parliament must cautiously reflect on the true nature of the positions it will be adopting, because options that take a purely economic view are quite unacceptable. Safeguarding the principle of representativeness and total equality between Member States is, in the current context, absolutely crucial.

  Blak (GUE/NGL), rapporteur. – (DA) Mr President, just a brief comment. I was very pleased with a lot of what the Commissioner said, but I really have to say how deeply disappointed I am that, following the debate in the committee, the bombshell has been dropped that the Commission wishes to set up a new agency for education and culture. This work could easily, of course, have been done by the other agencies. This means that horse-trading of one kind or another is now to be engaged in. We should like to have been informed of this in the committee, rather than get to hear about it in this House today, just before the whole matter is to be decided. It is disappointing. Really disappointing.

  President. The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.