Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteurs, in particular my friend, Mr Casaca, who has done a more than brilliant job. I also congratulate the Commission and all the Commission staff who have worked so hard to obtain a positive decision from Parliament in very difficult circumstances. We have been told in recent days by Eurosceptics – many of them on the extreme left and right – that we should not be granting discharge because there are still too many concerns about the accounting system. I share those concerns, but the Commission has made excellent progress in the last few months. The alarmist and often factually incorrect reporting by some newspapers does not do justice to the efforts being undertaken to put things right. With respect to the Council, I can only underline the comments made by the rapporteur, Mrs Avilés Perea, that it is high time that the Council – which now has an increasingly operational role – be held to account for the way it spends taxpayers' money. It would be good if the Convention were to make progress on this. However, in the meantime, bringing the Council into the discharge report for the first time in the history of the discharge process, as we are doing today, is a major breakthrough. Mrs Avilés Perea and Mr Bösch have already referred to the Committee of the Regions. The situation there can only be described as alarming. Two weeks ago the internal auditor of the CoR was invited to attend a meeting of our committee to explain the discrepancies between his views and those of the Director of Finance of that institution on the financial management situation. The internal auditor said three things. First, that the picture painted by the Director of Finance and the Secretary-General of the financial situation at the CoR was not complete. Second, that the CoR failed to properly apply the rules on the reimbursement of travel expenses and other financial rules. Third, and most shockingly, he said that his appearance before the committee was 'a cry for help'. The most senior official responsible for financial control at the Committee of the Regions issues a cry for help! In those circumstances, we have no option but to postpone discharge for the CoR while an investigation by the Court of Auditors takes place to determine the exact nature of the problems. Since the meeting of our committee two weeks ago, I have made further enquiries and I have obtained additional information on irregularities that are alleged to have taken place at that institution. In one case a high-ranking member of the CoR is alleged to have organised fake meetings on the eve of official meetings to be able to claim additional daily allowances to the tune of EUR 10 000. Another, now deceased, member of the CoR is alleged to have been engaged in airline ticket fraud amounting to some EUR 11 000. There are more such cases. However, perhaps most worrying – more worrying even than all of this – is the fact that the internal audit service appears to be subject to huge pressure and even intimidation, designed to discourage them from pursuing their activities in a free and impartial manner. In view of the seriousness of these allegations, which I consider to be reliable, I have decided to refer this case to the Anti-fraud Agency OLAF in the hope and the expectation that OLAF will launch an immediate inquiry to get to the bottom of all this. Finally, I want to express my full support for the report by Mr Staes on the discharge for the European Parliament. I hope the Convention will take good note of it and that the Bureau of this Parliament will now overturn its ludicrous decision to build two new meeting rooms in Strasbourg. We do not need them.

Political group: PSE