Mr President, the Committee on Budgetary Control has considered several reports recently, mostly relating to the 1998 discharge procedure. It is a strange time for us to be considering how the Commission is faring after its forced resignation last year due to many of the issues highlighted in the 1996 discharge. The discharge procedure is, of course, an opportunity for the European Parliament to exercise its responsibility in terms of monitoring the Commission and the other institutions' behaviour. We check their accounts. We ensure that policies have been well managed. The Commission spent the last year preparing for a radical reform, outlined in the White Paper presented on 1 March, and we appreciate that it will take more than a few months to turn this massive tanker around. Parliament and the Budgetary Control Committee are, however, keen to ensure that the reform occurs at a speedy pace, which is why we have decided to postpone discharge in the expectation that the Commission will hit the targets that we have set them within the next two months. The report as it stands at the moment is very different from the initial report that was submitted by Mrs Stauner on behalf of the EPP Group. That was clearly used as a political battering ram. Mrs Stauner quoted Goethe. I will quote Shakespeare. The report was full of sound and fury signifying nothing. That is why the explanatory statement attached to this report has not been agreed by the Budgetary Control Committee. It makes no sense in the context of the postponement report, and it is totally nonsensical and hysterical in tone. We are delighted that there was an almost unanimous consensus, however, on the new practical approach to the general discharge. We would like to thank the rapporteur for her cooperation on that. We expect and hope that the Commission will deliver and the rapporteur will perhaps take a more considered approach in her final report. But one thing which has become manifestly clear to me during this process is that we need an overhaul of the discharge procedure to avoid this kind of confrontation again. This discharge procedure should be an opportunity to study systems failures within the Commission. In an ideal world, it should be based on the Court of Auditors' Report, but that does mean that both the Budgetary Control Committee and the Court of Auditors must develop a much closer relationship. There is a massive amount of expertise in the Court of Auditors, expertise that Parliament should draw on in order to reach its own political conclusions. The discharge procedure should not be a time to score political points nor to hound individuals but, where systems fail and lead to inefficiency or – worse – to fraud, it is the duty of Parliament to correct them. We must also make sure that we find a mechanism within this system to make sure that we take account not only of the reports that are submitted by members of the Budgetary Control Committee, but also those by members of other parliamentary committees. In postponing the discharge, we have set out clear points that we expect the Commission to act upon. Never again will we accept the situation where we cannot get to the bottom of a case, because documents have gone missing. Clear lines of responsibility must be established so that if problems occur, disciplinary action will follow. Never again will we accept a situation where misconduct or a bad administrator will be judged by his or her peers. We expect an external element to be included, as advised by the Committee of Independent Experts. These are just two examples of how the Commission can improve its act in the short term without waiting to implement all the recommendations of the White Paper. There is a question to answer as to whether the current Commission should or can take responsibility for the mistakes and problems of the past Commission. Let us not forget that here we are considering the discharge for 1998. If we took this to its logical conclusion, it would mean that Parliament could only judge a sitting Commission during three years of its tenure. That is why it is clear that we must address systems failures rather than attack individuals or individual Commissioners who may no longer be involved. We do not want witch-hunts. We want answers as to how best we spend European taxpayers' money. I would like to turn very briefly to the other reports that we have considered in committee, and first of all to the Kuhne report on the European Parliament. Mr Kuhne has done an excellent job as rapporteur for the Parliament discharge. There is no doubt that there have been vast improvements in Parliament's performance. Our financial control system does not have the quantity of payments that the Commission has and therefore things are more manageable. We have had everlasting problems, of course, with the buildings, often through no fault of our own but because decisions have been imposed on us by the Council. If the Council had any concern about budget control, we certainly would not be sitting in this building right now. There has been a great deal of talk about a report on political group expenditure. The fact is that our committee has not seen this report. It has still not been published officially, and therefore it is difficult for us to comment on it. But transparency is a principle that we must hold dear in this context. I am delighted that Mrs Rühle has done such a great job on the EDF report. Mr Mulder has done a great job as well, displaying his usual wizardry with the EAGGF accounts. We support Mr Casaca in his approach, although we did not expect the Commission to support us on that of course. We certainly do not expect the Council to support our position on the Casaca Report. We are voting for postponement on many accounts. The important reports, of course, will come next. We hope that we will be able to develop a better approach in the next part of this discharge procedure. It is important that we find a new way of doing it. Thank you, Mr President, for all your kind support over the years for the Budgetary Control Committee. It is always greatly appreciated. IN THE CHAIR: MR COLOM I NAVALVice-President

Political group: PSE