Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, “zero tolerance towards fraud and other forms of incorrect conduct is a precondition for regaining confidence in the European civil service”. These are the words of Mr Kinnock, the vice-president of the Commission in charge of reform, in the Commission’s consultation paper dated 18 January 2000. It was on this premise and with the noble claim that it would not repeat past mistakes – the last Commission having been brought down just under a year ago as the result of fraud and irregularities – that the Prodi Commission took office in September. The Commission must be measured against this claim and its self-evident obligation, as guardian of the Treaties vis-à-vis third parties, to guarantee that their application begins at home. It was against this yardstick that the Committee on Budgetary Control came to the conclusion, as the leading committee, that it would recommend that discharge be postponed until 15 May 2000 and would call on the Commission to adopt 17 measures. These measures relate mainly to four areas which still require clarification or the oft-quoted fresh start. Firstly, the error rate of over five per cent calculated by the Court of Auditors over several years must be cut considerably by 2001 and a positive declaration of assurance must be achieved by 2003. Secondly, the particularly blatant cases of fraud and irregularity in connection with the Fléchard case, ECHO, MED and contracts awarded to visiting scientists must be fully clarified and dealt with in disciplinary terms. Thirdly, Parliament must be given unrestricted access to information and documents for its control activities, as called for in the 1997 discharge resolution. Fourthly: reports must be filed on the relevant disciplinary hearings and fundamental reforms implemented. The Committee did not pass this resolution lightly and finally adopted the proposal submitted by a large majority of 19 votes to 1. The fact that this motion was tabled in the form of a compromise between the four main groups demonstrates clearly that Parliament is pulling in the same direction on this extremely important issue and wishes to signal its unity over and above party political divisions and any national interests or chauvinism. The Commission should agree to it if it wishes to retain its credibility in its handling of the taxes paid by European citizens and its democratic dealings with the elected representatives of the people of Europe. I feel particularly strongly about the integrity and the ability of the European executive to act, especially in view of the imminent enlargement of the EU, because the Commission needs to have its hands free for political policy-making and must not be hampered by time-consuming and irritating justification campaigns. Parliament takes the control function assigned to it in the European Treaties seriously. All the cases of fraud and irregularity addressed in the resolution relate directly to the 1998 financial year, even though some originated much earlier. All the measures called for must be carried out by the deadline set. All the cases are awaiting a decision. Clearly, the new Commission cannot be held directly responsible for the cases I have referred to, even if not all the members of the Commission are new. But it is responsible for dealing with this legacy and it will only distinguish itself positively from its predecessors if it takes a ruthless approach and clears up every last one of these cases. The Commission should also take a close look at how it treats officials who deserve the highest respect for their courageous sense of civic duty in dealing with irregularities. Despite countless lofty announcements, there is as yet no real evidence of a fresh start. Commissioner’s Kinnock’s reform paper, which is broad in scope if nothing else, sets off every single alarm bell in the area of financial control. Decentralisation must not result in the total de facto abolition of internal financial control. On the contrary, care must be taken to ensure that reforms concentrate on basics and that the principle of quality before quantity still applies. My conclusion is this: “Words enough have been exchanged, let me at last see some action. While you fashion compliments, something useful may happen.” You see, good old Goethe had the right words even in this situation. In this sense, I see the motion for a resolution as a chance for the Commission to justify the trust which Parliament demonstrated in it and its President when I was nominated last September and which it reiterated in its discharge for the 1997 budgetary year. The motion should also send out nothing more and nothing less than a clear signal of Parliament’s support to the President of the Commission, who unfortunately is not with us here today. I should like to call on the President to grab this chance and to make use, where necessary, of the powers to issue directives granted to him.

Political group: PPE-DE