Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 13 March 2014 - Strasbourg

General guidelines for the 2015 budget - Section III (debate)

  Marta Andreasen (ECR). - Madam President, it is that time of the year again when we put forward our wishes regarding what the EU budget should be spent on. Headlines like ‘investing in research and innovation’, ‘strengthening EU industry’ or ‘job creation’ are repeated year after year. We are supposed to have been investing in those areas for the last decade. It has made no difference, as the crisis has demonstrated, and yet the Commission keeps asking for more money. This is in spite of the fact that the auditors say that the level of irregularities has increased.

As I see it, the Commission has totally failed to demonstrate any efficiency in controlling taxpayers’ money. Would anybody in their right mind invest in such a badly-run organisation? The answer would certainly be no. So why do we keep asking for more money from taxpayers? It is this Parliament’s role to call the Commission to account and say ‘no’ to business as usual.