Berthu (NI). – (FR) Mr President, in order to fully justify the proposal for a motion of censure on the European Commission that I co-signed, all I need to do is to refer to the report that the European Parliament itself adopted by a very large majority on 29 January, on the measures taken by the Commission to follow up our observations on the discharge of the 2001 budget, particularly regarding the Eurostat affair. The assessment made by that resolution is damning. What is more serious is not so much the Eurostat affair itself because, after all, misappropriation can affect any body, but rather the monitoring failures that it revealed, and, above all, the inability of the Commission to convincingly put things right.

Our resolution of 29 January, which I remind you again was adopted by the European Parliament, criticised the culture of secrecy and lack of transparency in the Commission, the poor internal communication of information, the fact that it was extremely slow and reticent in submitting audit reports to the European Parliament, and the fact that the Commissioners were shirking their political responsibilities. The last of these characteristics seems to be even more true now, as the Commission no longer accepts any responsibility for this affair and Mr Prodi, who did not even come to our debate this evening, seems to be more interested in the electoral campaign in Italy.

This is why Members must take on their own responsibility today as elected representatives of the people of Europe, the taxpayers of Europe. I congratulate the sixty-six other co-signatories to this motion, led by Mr Bonde and Mr Heaton-Harris, who had the courage and clarity to resist all the pressure. I would like to say this to Members who are hesitating to vote in favour of the motion of censure: by defending the Commission, as Mrs Grossetête just did, whether you like it or not, you will be covering up unacceptable behaviour and providing a very poor service to the European institutions.

The way to provide a good service to the European institutions is to make the Commission understand that it is not superior, that it is a body like all the other bodies, which has to give in to the higher control of the European Parliament and the Member States.