Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to congratulate Mr Bösch on his complete report, which gives a thorough account of the incidences that occurred in 2001. The protection of the Community’s financial interests and the fight against fraud are crucial components in guaranteeing the rights of citizens in the European Union. The Group of the European People’s Party welcomes the almost 40% reduction in the total annual volume of fraud and irregularities between 2000 and 2001. This fell from EUR 2 028 million in 2000 to EUR 1 275 million in 2001. Fraud reduction has taken place in all spheres, except in the Structural Funds, where there has been an increase. We are unhappy, however, with the low recovery rate, which has fallen considerably. The Committee on Budgetary Control has on several occasions expressed its unhappiness with the poor functioning of the system and the need for its management to be improved. Our Group also hopes that the Commission will fulfil its commitment to a policy of zero tolerance with regard to internal fraud, and that it duly informs Parliament of developments made in the various cases in progress and in recently-opened investigations. The Group of the European People’s Party believes it to be crucial that the Accession Treaties take account of the candidate countries’ capacity for control and looks forward to hearing the Court of Auditors’ assessment of each of these countries’ financial control systems. We must recall, however, that knowing the control capacity of these countries is not enough, since, with enlargement, our new borders with Russia will mean a real danger of increased fraud, which will inevitably have repercussions for the Community’s financial interests. We cannot discuss the fight against fraud without referring to the future general reform of the Treaty establishing the European Communities, which is currently being discussed in the Convention and which is reflected in the amendments tabled by my Group. Following the publication of the Commission’s Green Paper on criminal-law protection of the Community’s financial interests and of the Convention’s proposal to reform Article 280 of the Treaty, the establishment of a new body is being proposed, one that will have the task of ensuring the protection of the Community’s financial interests: a European Prosecutor. With regard to both external fraud – perpetrated in the various Member States – and to internal – that is, institutional – fraud, we in Parliament, and specifically the Committee on Budgetary Control, look forward to hearing the response of the various Member States to the proposal for a European Prosecutor, since we are attempting to determine the most appropriate way of dealing with this body, particularly with regard to its competences and to a relationship that befits a body for coordination and assistance, such as Eurojust. Nevertheless, we would like the possible references that this report makes to the report on the European Prosecutor – for which Mrs Theato was responsible – to be made very clear and, to this end, probably before the vote tomorrow, my Group will table an amendment in the aim of preventing confusion arising between the reports by Mrs Theato and Mr Bösch.

Political group: PPE-DE