Jean-Pierre Audy (PPE). – (FR) Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs and our Chair of the Committee on Budgets, my friend, Mr Lamassoure.

I have five observations to make. The first concerns research, in particular, the sixth and seventh framework programmes. For the sake of legal certainty, we in the Committee on Budgetary Control repeat that we want the European Commission to refrain from recalculating, via new interpretations of the eligibility criteria, financial statements for completed projects that it has already approved and paid for. We repeat our request for the Commission not to deviate from international accounting and auditing standards.

The second point is the inclusion of EU staff pensions in the budget. We propose that the claims against Member States in respect of staff pensions – EUR 37 billion as at 31 December 2008, an increase of EUR 4 billion since 2007 – be entered in the accounts as an asset, and we propose a study on the creation of an EU pension fund.

The third point is that the Anti-Fraud Office should be supported. It should be strengthened so that it can do its job better, particularly where interventions outside the EU are concerned.

The fourth point is that we would like the Commission to provide the resources to enable us to hold an interinstitutional conference with the aim of obtaining a positive statement of assurance from the European Court of Auditors. This conference would bring together the national courts of auditors, the European Court of Auditors, the national parliaments and the administrations concerned.

The final point is that the European Union does not invest enough, and this is a personal proposal: is it not time that we included a section on investments in our budget and that, in association with the European Investment Bank – of which I propose that, henceforth, since we have legal personality, the European Union becomes a partner, alongside the Member States – we had an investment plan, notably on trans-European networks? This covers energy, motorways, high-speed rail links, waterways, universities, education, broadband, health, space, and so on.