Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Karlsson very sincerely for his presentation on the annual report. Mrs Schreyer's report was just as interesting. But I would particularly like to thank you, Mr Karlsson, as President of the Court of Auditors, for the way you have kept the Members of the Committee on Budgetary Control informed this time round. This has enabled us to prepare for today's debate without having to obtain details from the press. As you said, Mr Karlsson, 1999 was a dramatic year, with the resignation of the previous Commission and the appointment of the new one. We do not expect that the new Commission will immediately be able to rectify all the mistakes and irregularities that Parliament uncovered and because of which it called, in vain, for reforms at that time. Like the Court of Auditors, we welcome President Prodi's efforts to reform the Commission and we are following the implementation of these efforts in a constructive but not uncritical way. Are things finally changing for the better as regards the Community budget? We would have liked to have been able to say 'yes' to that question, now that the new Commission has been in office for over a year and has, since September 1999, already been directly responsible for part of the process of implementing the 1999 budget. Unfortunately, we cannot yet answer with a clear conscience, even armed with the Court of Auditors' new annual report. The Court of Auditors has quite rightly noted the many steps that the new Commission has taken – or at least announced – in order to improve matters. Mrs Schreyer also mentioned this. I have in mind new procedures for setting priorities and allocating resources, changes in human resources policy, fundamental improvements in budget implementation and financial control, reform of programmes and the creation of an efficient audit service. But all these are still hopes for the future. The reality as described in the annual report is, however, more sobering. What is particularly regrettable and almost incomprehensible is that there are still problems about the reliability of accounting procedures. In other words, the Commission has not put its books in order, and the closures only reflect the true financial position subject to serious limitations. Information is missing on the payment of advances and the payment of instalments at the year end, and existing commitments are, believe it or not, undervalued by EUR 2.6 million. At the same time, the Court of Auditors says that potential claims have been significantly overvalued. Parliament expressly drew attention to these serious accounting errors during the discharge procedures for 1996, 1997 and 1998. Even if it is difficult and time consuming to fundamentally change budget management, we might have hoped, Commissioner, that the new Commission would at least manage to get the books straight without delay. But it is apparent that they have not even succeeded in doing that, which is a matter of great regret as far as I am concerned. When you assumed office, Mrs Schreyer, you assured us that you would strive to achieve this. The European Parliament now finds itself in an extremely difficult situation because earlier this year, in January, it declared that it could no longer accept a situation in which the 1999 closure was still marred by serious errors. You are familiar with the wording of that decision. But if there is no closure, that means that no discharge can be given for budgetary management, just as we said back in January. Closure is a condition for such a discharge. A solution needs to be found here, and I would like to ask you, Mrs Schreyer, if a correction of the 1999 accounts could be envisaged. Once again, and for the sixth successive time now, the Court is unable to give a positive statement of assurance, that is to say, it cannot give a guarantee of the legality and regularity of the procedures on which the financial statement is based. The number of errors occurring is too great for a guarantee of this kind to be given. The error rate is still well over 5%. Expressed in euros, that means that a sum of approximately EUR 5 billion was spent incorrectly. I most certainly recognise that fraud is not always involved, Mr Karlsson. It is often a case of carelessness or misunderstandings in the face of complicated rules and procedures, but there is no getting round it: an error rate this high is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in the long run. I must refute your comments about poor implementation in the Member States, Mrs Schreyer, given that the Court of Auditors was quite clear about where the error rate lay within the Commission and, ultimately, it is still the Commission that bears responsibility for budget implementation. I would like to see more rigour here, so that we can really tell the European public that their money is being properly administered. We are now getting down to work in committee and will cooperate closely with you.

Political group: PPE-DE