Mr President, if you take a look at the figures for fraud and the irregularities affecting the European Budget in the year 2000, you see, above all, a massive increase in the irregularities that have come to light. Just so we can put this beyond dispute for once: for the taxpayer, it is essentially irrelevant whether it is a question of fraud or irregularity; the money has been improperly spent. Now, one can, of course, argue about whether more fraud is actually being committed or whether it is being cleared up more effectively, or whether there are more irregularities. I tend to think it is probably a combination of these. The Commissioner may well think differently, but we cannot go so far as to say that having discovered 100% irregularities means that we have had the best way of combating fraud, because then we will not have any budget left. In my position – and perhaps the Commissioner responsible was herself once a Member of this House in a past life – and in this situation, one asks oneself what would happen in a business if the management presented figures like these one year. Here, we are always coming up against the fact that people say we are among the best administrations. We are striving to be that. I think that what would happen would be something quite different from what the Commission expects from us as an action plan. The actual point of my report is that I believe we should just consider where this road might take us. Mrs Theato has already mentioned one possibility, and an important one at that, which we will not be able to avoid if we want to make changes. We must address the issue of a European State Prosecutor, and do it without excuses about amendments to the Treaty. The possibilities are already there in the Treaties. Your opposition to it, Mrs Schreyer, is your own business, but we will not carry on standing idly before our taxpayers and tell them that we just cannot do anything. That is not what we have a Commission for. The Commission is there to act, and of that I would remind you, Mrs Schreyer. In exactly the same way, we must give greater priority to the protection of the EU's financial interests in the applicant countries. There were, and are, proposals on this which amount to saying that we will, at some point, have to let our anti-fraud unit be active in an advisory capacity, which we know already. As the example of Slovakia has shown, the point at issue is not the acceding countries, but the continuing inability of this Commission to get a proper grip on the problematic aspects of enlargement, so that our fellow citizens might get the idea that enlargement has been prepared for in such a way, including financially, that they can happily say yes to it. The Commission bears great responsibility in this respect. Madam Commissioner, I am inclined to think that, when one has to submit those sorts of figures and turn them into something tangible, one has to seize every available opportunity to improve matters. My final point is on an issue on which it would be good if we could seize the opportunity for common action. It has to do with a question that I will raise now. Mrs Schreyer, the plan is to appoint Mr Alberto Perduca as Director of the operational department of OLAF, the anti-fraud office. His qualifications as a public prosecutor, his experience in combating the mafia, and also his experience at an international level make him the ideal man for the job. Unfortunately, his appointment has been blocked for months now by the new Italian government. Perhaps, Mrs Schreyer, you might tell us what the Commission has done about this to date. Would personal intervention by the President of the Commission not be necessary in this case? Has this, as is to be hoped, already taken place?

Political group: PSE