Fuente: © European Union
http://europa.eu.int

EU: Siim Kallas Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Administrative Affairs, Audit and Anti-FraudFollow-up to the 2006 budgetary discharge

Committee on Budgetary Control, European Parliament

/noticias.info/ Brussels, 6 May 2008

Mr Chairman, members

Thank you for this opportunity to report on a series of matters linked to this year's discharge. We have a lot of work before us. But before we dig into the detail, I wish to start by praising the Committee on Budgetary Control (COCOBU) for the quality and intensity of the process this year. I hope we can continue to work together in this spirit.

The structural funds Commissioners and their representatives are ready to report to you in June. If you agree, external actions could be the focus in September. Commissioner Potocnik is keen to discuss with you progress made in controls on research in July.

In July, I will also present to you the Commission's synthesis report for 2007 and the Commission's report on internal audits for that year.

Today, you have asked me to cover four issues:

* The 2009 annual policy strategy (APS)
* The report on the action plan towards an integrated internal control framework
* The structural funds action plan, and
* The follow-up to the 2006 discharge.

I'll take the points in that order, and try to be as brief as possible.

The 2009 annual policy strategy

Last year, when presenting the 2008 APS, some of you criticised that I only focused on the activities planned for my own portfolio area. I have made the same choice this year. The Commission's four key strategic objectives defined at the start of our mandate — prosperity, solidarity, security and freedom — are well known to you by now, and I think you will find it more useful to hear about the things under preparation in COCOBU's main areas of work.

Let me start with transparency, an issue you also touch on in the recent discharge resolution.

First, I am pleased to report that the register of interest representatives — or "lobbyists" — will be in place in a few weeks.

This register will be linked to a code of conduct. Those registering will have to declare that they will respect the rules of this code or that they already abide by a specified professional code with comparable rules. The register you will see is a pilot project which will be reviewed after one year.

It will not prejudge the outcome of the discussions among the institutions. In fact, I hope the Parliament's plenary next week will confirm the line taken by the Constitutional Affairs Committee's report. This would confirm that both the Commission and Parliament are committed to developing a shared, one-stop shop for registration — something the Commission originally proposed, and remains fully committed to contributing to.

Our work to reform the framework rules governing the Commission's expert groups also continues. Our aim is to ease the administrative burden and at the same time publish more information on the establishment and workings of expert groups. We are finalising an internal evaluation of the system with the participation of all services; the first results of it should be available before the summer and concrete actions could then be discussed and implemented.

The Commission is also reflecting on how to provide better access to documents produced as a result of the workings of these expert groups, and on how to encourage the provision of feedback to their work by way of, for instance, an annual summary of the work of each group. Some of these activities are already being implemented; others will be put in place in 2008 and 2009, in accordance with the results of the internal evaluation.

For my other areas of responsibility, administration, anti-fraud and audit, we have looked at where we need to make extra efforts.

On administration

Staff will be allocated to political priorities, in compliance with the needs confirmed by the 2007 screening results. So the Commission has requested the last tranche of the enlargement-related posts (that is 250 new posts), and will generate a further 600 posts through redeployment, to support the priorities set out in the Annual Management Strategy. Services will be required to streamline their internal support and coordination activities by the end of 2008.

We shall continue the policy of mobility of senior staff in the Commission and to improve the geographical and gender balance here. With relatively few new staff, we shall continue to emphasise in-house training. This implies continuing actions to improve staff flexibility and well-being through consolidating flexitime and encouraging teleworking where it is appropriate. Roll-out of the corporate e-Commission portal will take place this September.

Ladies and gentlemen, honourable members,

One of my priorities until the end of the mandate, and beyond, is to implement the buildings policy set out in the Communication adopted in September 2007. It will lead to better value for money, but I am sure you will also appreciate the long-term, holistic vision of this project.

The buildings policy will make us better neighbours. In Brussels, we will develop our activities in two directions: the development — with the Brussels Region authorities — of a new European quarter, and the identification of our future site(s).

An urban planning competition was launched in April by the Brussels Region, related to an important section of the area around rue de la Loi. Later this year, we'll know the result and on this basis, we should be able to launch the first concrete architectural projects in 2009. I imagine you would agree that the symbolism and a harmonious, coherent, visible presence of the European institutions in Brussels deserves to be enhanced.

We will also develop up to three sites outside the European Quarter. We think that this would decrease real estate pressure on the area and in the meantime we could house a part of our services in less expensive areas of the city.

On a sometimes related issue, we are also updating our security policy, encouraging other institutions to share this concern.

On anti-fraud

I am pleased to see that you will begin later in this meeting your consideration of the Commission's proposal for amendment of the OLAF Regulation 1073/1999. The Commission looks forward to examining this proposal with you, and bringing the procedure to an early and successful conclusion.

Both the Commission's report on protection of financial interests and OLAF's own activity report will be available at the beginning of July. They will cover the year 2007.

Internal Audit Service

Our current highest priority in the area of internal audit is to ensure timely follow-up of agreed audit recommendations. We have an opportunity in July to discuss further, so let me just recall also that the audits now being done by the Internal Audit Service are planned in order to allow the IAS to issue in 2010 its first, formal overall opinion on the state of control in the Commission.

Mr Chairman, the second issue you have asked me to cover today is the progress on the action plan towards an integrated internal control framework.

Two years ago, we analysed the Commission's internal control framework with the help of Parliament, Council and the Member States, and the Court of Auditors.

We identified 16 gaps. We drew up an action plan to rectify the gaps. We reported on the results in March.

Progress has been made: we have largely put in place this framework. Six of the 16 actions remain to be fully completed and this will be done in 2008.

This strengthens control arrangements over the Commission's activities and we can already show some impact. Full impact will take time and will build over the coming years. Impact indicators have been defined for each action. Progress will be reported annually on the basis of these beginning in early 2009. The evolution of the Court of Auditors' assessment will also provide a global measure of impact.

Mr Chairman,

Let me mention the issue of "tolerable risk". I know you take a personal interest in this issue, and that you have made important contributions to the debate.

We will step up our work on this complex but necessary discussion.

The Commission is completing the assessment of the costs of control in agriculture, ERDF and direct centralised management. The results will form the basis of a communication by the Commission in October 2008 which will examine the cost benefits of control systems and the analysis of residual risk. We then hope that – with your help – we can proceed in Council too with the discussion on residual risk of error.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The action plan was intended to address identified gaps and when further areas for attention are identified the Commission defines the measures necessary to address these.

Consistent with the IICF action plan, the Commission has also focused on structural funds, and in February adopted a more detailed action plan to strengthen its supervision under shared management of structural funds. This is the third topic you have asked me to cover this morning.

As mentioned earlier, the responsible Commissioners will meet you in June, so I'll be brief:

Structural funds action plan

Your Committee has received the first quarterly report on the implementation of the action plan to strengthen the Commission's supervisory role in structural actions, action by action for all the 37 actions, at the end of April.

The European Court of Auditors gave informal comments on the reporting framework and these have been taken into account.

One component of the action plan — improvements in annual activity reports — has been completed with the finalisation of the reports at the end of March.

Other actions are progressing to schedule, for example audits of high-risk management and winding-up bodies, of which 17 were carried out in the first quarter.

On 21 April, the Commission sent you a follow-up report on the situation regarding Member States that had initially not submitted all the required information for the annual summaries. The results are positive overall as most Member States have now complied with the minimum requirements. An infringement procedure has been launched for the one Member State (Germany) which has submitted no annual summary.

I welcome the transparency this regular reporting creates. The Commission welcomes COCOBU's support to help us improve overall management in this area.

National management declarations

The Commission has now received two Member States' national declarations, and we look forward to the UK's first national declaration in the coming months. That will bring to three the number of Member States that find this a useful discipline to reduce risk in their control systems. Paragraph 40 of Parliament's resolution on the APS 2009 of 23 April returns to the issue of national management declarations. I repeat, the Commission will give its firm political support to national initiatives to draw up and publish national declarations, audited by the national audit courts. I have already had the opportunity to underline this commitment in a letter I sent on 17 March 2008 to the Chairman, and I am glad to do so again before you.

We will continue to encourage Member States to follow the good examples of the Netherlands, Denmark, and soon the UK, though we recognise that Community legislation does not require them.

Thank you very much. notas_de_prensa_archivo