Vitor CALDEIRA, President of the European Court of Auditors, presents the European Court of Auditors' Annual report 2009 to MEPs in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

meeting

annual report of the Court of Auditors (T)

SILVA CALDEIRA, Vitor Manuel da (PT)

CHATZIMARKAKIS, Jorgo (ALDE, DE)

ŠEMETA, Algirdas (LT, EC)

European Court of Auditors' Annual report 2009: extracts from the presentation

SOUNDBITE (English), Vitor Manuel da SILVA CALDEIRA, President of the European Court of Auditors, What we said then still holds today. First: Error rates remain high in parts of the European Union budget, cohesion in particular. Second: The errors which occurred found came mainly from incorrect claims from payment from beneficiaries and public procurement irregularities. Third: There are two ways to try to improve the situation. Better management of systems including the arrangement for recoveries and financial corrections and simplification of rules and regulations. Fourth: The Court finds a number of recurrent problems in its special reports on individual expenditure problems. To address these problems: the Court suggests applying a set of principles when revising expenditure programs. Notably by asking: is there likely to be European added value? Are objectives clear and is the scheme realistic?

SOUNDBITE (English), Vitor Manuel da SILVA CALDEIRA, President of the European Court of Auditors, Ensuring that the funds provided by the European tax payers are spent optimally to the European Union budget places heavy responsibilities on all of us. On the Commission when proposing legislation and implementing the budget on the Member States in managing day to day some 80 percent of the European Union budget, on the Council and Parliament as legislators and in the procedure and of course on the Court of Auditors as the Unions external auditor.

SOUNDBITE (English), Algirdas &#352;EMETA, European Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, Audit and Anti-Fraud, For the first time ever the Court estimates that the most likely error rate across the budget lies between 2 and 5 percent. This means that more than 95% of payments are free from error. You will agree with me that this verdict is a positive sign that our efforts to further improve control are having a concrete impact. This positive result has been achieved mainly thanks to a substantial reduction of the error rate in cohesion. Concretely this progress reflects the merits of a more rigorous approach in either interrupting or suspending payments where problems were identified.

SOUNDBITE (English), Algirdas &#352;EMETA, European Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union, Audit and Anti-Fraud, My conviction is that the financial actors should focus more their efforts on ensuring the quality of spending. The performance of a program should not be assessed only against the respect of eligibility rules. It is also and primarily about the impact of the EU action and its added value for our citizens and businesses. Therefore in preparing the budget review I have promoted the new focus on impact rather than input through the definition of clear and measurable objectives and key performance indicators to monitor the progress and evaluation the impact of our actions.

SOUNDBITE (German), Jorgo CHATZIMARKAKIS (ALDE, DE), rapporteur, What we have to talk about now is the question in the cause of the new development of the budget legislation, but also the negotiations about the budget. So the question is: do we really need a higher budget? If this is still the case, that for the 16th time in a row the court of auditors states: there are mistakes in the budget and sometimes massive errors, I have named an example, then we have to ask the question: does this Commission really get more money?