Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you have heard the news. The Committee on Budgetary Control proposes discharge for the 2001 Budget in respect of all institutions except the Committee on the Regions, which still has until the autumn to finish its homework, that is, it must clear up the contradictions in travel and subsistence payments and other points and undergo a comprehensive audit. It is also proposed postponing discharge for five agencies that receive money from the EU Budget until their constituent acts are brought into line with the new Financial Regulation. Let me begin, however, by thanking all the rapporteurs for their conscientious and responsible work and the members of the committees for their constructive cooperation and in particular the committee secretariat for its excellent support. We have broken new ground with the discharge procedure for 2001 because rules have come into force that are not always clear and may lead to difficulties. The first question concerns the vote during the April meeting. The Committee on Budgetary Control has two options: first, to propose the discharge be granted or, second, to propose the discharge be postponed. If, in the second case, the plenary were to reject the proposal, discharge would be considered granted. That is an implicit vote of approval, which in my opinion does no justice to the weight of the discharge. What would then remain of an original stringent decision that would have to be watered down by being adjusted to such an indirect discharge decision? Are the accounts in that case still correct, now that, in contrast with the former case, we have to provide accounts for every discharge report, something which seems questionable? All the discharges must nevertheless be published in the Official Journal. Yesterday evening the Committee on Budgetary Control had to comply with another new rule. All the amendments tabled for the plenary had to be examined. How that is supposed to be done is nowhere explained. We therefore proceeded pragmatically and noted the Committee’s previous vote in the case of motions that were retabled, taking a vote on new motions, of which there were only a few. One thing is quite clear – the plenary and the groups are the masters of events. Our committee can make proposals but not set parameters. I think this new rule complicates the discharge procedure. Without the innovations referred to, I might have voted for a postponement in the Casaca report, because the rapporteur has listed the Commission’s failings clearly and in detail and the other rapporteurs have also commented on them. This concerns the book-keeping and accounting system in particular, where staff decisions were dubious and where reforms were tackled too late and half-heartedly despite repeated reminders from the Court of Auditors. If I am voting for discharge despite all that, it is because I did not want to risk the scenario I described at the beginning. The Commission must not take this as carte blanche, but it must follow up our demands thoroughly, speedily and above all transparently. There is not much time until the next discharge, which we start on in November. We are looking for positive results by then, or all our complaints will be repeated with stricter conditions attached. The points are mentioned here: proceedings in respect of Eurostat are still not completed, although steps have been initiated, and the committee’s demand is that all the options for presenting the accounts and their reform should be examined by outside experts. They must then be discussed in a hearing. A motion to this effect will be presented again today in extended form. I ask you to vote in favour. Let me thank, once again, all who have been involved in this big piece of work.

Political group: PPE-DE