Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 11 November 2010 - Brussels

Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report - 2009 (debate)

  Søren Bo Søndergaard, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. – (DA) Mr President, I would like to thank the Court of Auditors for an excellent report. As we have heard, overall, there has been a reduction in the number of errors being made. What should we make of this? In my opinion, this depends on two things: the starting point and our expectations. The starting point was horrendously poor. In 2008, billions of euro were paid out in contravention of the rules. Therefore, the expectations were that there should not only be improvements, but that there should be significant improvements in all areas.

So, has this happened? Yes, in the area of cohesion, there has been a definite reduction in erroneous payments, which is a good thing, even if their level is still unacceptably high. In other areas, however, there has actually been a rise, which is quite simply not good enough.

The other day in the Committee on Budgetary Control and again today, Commissioner Šemeta claimed that the overall reduction in the number of errors was a result of the Commission’s efforts. That is fine by me. I am happy to give the Commission the credit. In that case, however, it is also clear who will be responsible if the error rate increases next year. Please take that as an invitation.