Mr President, the very first thing I would like to do is thank the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, very much indeed for this report on the Commission‘s fifth supplementary and amending budget, and make it known that it meets with our approval. You may find it astonishing that a fifth supplementary and amending budget is being put forward here, at the end of this financial year. I would like to remind you though that Parliament, or rather the European Union as a whole, have, in recent years, developed the Notenboom procedure to such an extent that the carry-overs were practically indecipherable by the end of the year, and that we pressed for doing this by means of supplementary and amending budgets, in order to achieve greater transparency. And look what is happening: the number is rising all the time. I think though, that this has enabled us to bring about greater openness and also a situation that lends itself more readily to scrutiny. It will not surprise you to learn that I am particularly keen to talk about OLAF and the fifteen additional posts. OLAF, which came into operation on 1 July this year, thereby disbanding UCLAF, the previous anti-fraud office, is a new body and we want to do everything we can to make it run efficiently. I assume that this is something that is a major matter of concern for the Commission every bit as much as it is for the other institutions, which are at present still engaged in deciding on accession via the interinstitutional agreement. Originally, amending budget 4/1999 provided for 15 posts for OLAF, which was to have a total of 300 posts. A total of 120 posts that were part of what used to be UCLAF – I will refer to them as posts rather than people – are already at the disposal of OLAF and we must now consolidate this position with all haste. That is why we were most disappointed that people took so much convincing when it came to adding a further fifteen posts to the fifteen provided for in the supplementary and amending budget 4/1999, i.e. a total of 30 for this year. I am very grateful to the Committee on Budgets for giving its unequivocal support to the Committee on Budgetary Control in this matter and that we now have these 30 posts for 1999. The budget has earmarked 75 posts for the year 2000. But the full staffing plan really ought to guarantee that OLAF is fully up and running by 2001 at the latest. Mrs Schreyer, I would like to put a few direct questions to you. I believe you have been in touch with the monitoring committee, for which provision has specifically been made to reinforce its secretariat with high-flying personnel. This monitoring committee, which is part of OLAF, comprises five independent experts who continue to pursue their normal occupations however. They may not be undertaking this work on a voluntary basis – they receive a certain amount of money to cover costs, but this is not payment in the real sense – and they require appropriate support. You will have had contact with the monitoring committee by now and in so doing also have allowed yourself to be persuaded that this work is necessary to guarantee the independence of OLAF. Yesterday, we decided on the procedure for appointing the director of OLAF in the Committee on Budgetary Control. I would like to ask you the following question Mrs Schreyer: on 28 October, I wrote to you to ask if you, indeed the Commission as a whole, could send me official confirmation of the list of eleven candidates for this office. I am sorry to say that so far I have not received a reply to this letter. I would like to take the opportunity in this plenary sitting to urge you most fervently to provide a response as soon as possible. As soon as possible means that I am counting on it being this week – and I want to make that very plain – so that we can get the official referral under way, so as to enable us to make progress here in Parliament. The Council is putting pressure on, as is Parliament. And so should the Commission, so that there is still time for us to appoint the director before the end of this year. I would urge you, if you are able, to undertake to have the official referral together with the list of eleven candidates, forwarded to us straightaway.

Political group: PPE-DE