Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, honourable Commissioners, the report that we have before us is, I feel, an impressive work. It undoubtedly exercises the mind in an extremely useful way, coming as it does in the wake of the first report produced last March. In any case, it shows that there is a need for greater transparency. For almost three hundred pages, the experts bash away remorselessly at the problems relating to management, supervisory mechanisms, the fight against fraud, personnel management and business organisation. In so doing, they do not shrink from taking the Commission severely to task, but they also refer to what has sometimes been weak behaviour on the part of the European Parliament and the Council. I feel this only increases the objectivity of this report. I fully endorse my colleague Mr Mulder’s comments on the Flechard case. Be that as it may, our group considers that this report has come slightly too late. It should have been available when the hearings started at the beginning of this month. There is no doubt that it contains a whole armoury of facts that we could have used to good effect during our hearings. Certainly as far as Commissioner-designate Kinnock was concerned, who will probably be responsible for reforming the Commission, it has provided us with facts which could really have added to the discussion. I will cite just two examples. Under point 2.323 the Committee of Wise Men suggests that when the Commission’s contracts are put out to tender, non-profit making associations are used which have been set up by officials or officials’ acquaintances. What truth is there to this? It could have been an interesting debate. The Committee of Wise Men also refers to the handbook that Santer’s dismissed Commission compiled on Technical Assistance Offices. The Committee of Wise Men considers this to have been an analytical error. It could have been an interesting debate with Commissioner Kinnock. It is all too late though. Be that as it may, the crunch question now is what does Prodi’s Commission intend to do with this document? I have been told that Mr Prodi said in the Conference of Presidents that this document has no legal basis. Is that so? In any case, our group considered it unacceptable that this document should just be brushed aside. Our group of greens, regionalists and nationalists wants Mr Prodi to take this document seriously. The European Parliament and the Commission financed the five Wise Men. In the course of the last six months, they have spoken to many people working at the Commission, and their analysis is damning and sometimes caustic. Messrs Prodi and Kinnock, what do you intend to do with this report? As a matter of fact, I feel that it would be a good thing if the Commission, which is soon to take office, were to provide answers on a point by point basis to the proposals and comments made by the Committee of Wise Men. Come what may, there must be some follow-up to this document in the European Parliament. I am very pleased that the Conference of Presidents has proposed that this document should be referred to the Committee on Budgetary Control. It is certainly the case that this committee must now draw up an own-initiative report, but I would also like to appeal to all the other committees which, in view of their expertise, could each make a particularly substantial contribution. I have in mind the Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Regional Policy, and also of course, the Committee on Industry, which could make a number of concrete proposals in the run-up to the IGC. To conclude, let us be quite honest about this, the Committee on Budgetary Control has done a lot of work in this area over the past five years. But at the end of the day, it was a humble official on level B3 who, in December 1998, passed a 700-page memorandum to the European Parliament, and whom we owe thanks to for the fact that this document at last came into being. His actions had a catalytic effect and ultimately led to the appointment of the Committee of Wise Men. I fully endorse Mr Pöttering’s proposals on this matter, but I would like to point out to Mr Kinnock that Mr Van Buitenen is still in the dark so far as his position is concerned. The disciplinary procedure to which he is subject is still on-going. Would Mr Kinnock, working together with the whole Commission as a College, undertake to bring this disciplinary procedure to a satisfactory conclusion as soon as possible after his appointment, so that Mr Van Buitenen can at last return to work in the right and proper manner and have his reputation restored?

Political group: Verts-ALE