Mr President, the discharge procedure is something that is particularly important. It is one of the European Parliament’s major powers and this was evident during the most serious dispute between Parliament and the Commission, which occurred on the occasion of a vote on discharge. In my view, Parliament’s objective over the last 15 years has been, first and foremost, to ensure that the scrutiny performed under the discharge procedure is a political scrutiny in the fullest sense of the word, in other words a power of scrutiny which is an expression of the taxpayers’ desire to ensure that public money is not wasted, and which is not just a technical formality. Secondly, we felt that it was not just the Commission but all the bodies that have their own budget which, by extension, should be subject to the scrutiny of the discharge procedure by Parliament’s granting of discharge. Thirdly, we felt that since the Treaty bestowed upon us the power to grant discharge, we should also have the power to refuse to grant it. So, under the authority of the Committee on Budgetary Control and its chairman, Mrs Theato – whom I would like to congratulate –a genuine power of Parliament has progressively built up, and Parliament, through discharge, is, therefore, well and truly expressing the concerns of taxpayers. That said, extending the discharge procedure poses a number of problems. The first of these problems is the danger that this procedure will go on forever without achieving results. The report before you by Mr Hans-Peter Martin lays down, for all the provisions, relatively short and relatively reasonable deadlines. In this respect, I shall say to the Commission ‘Commissioner, you cannot ask us to grant discharge within a short deadline as well as telling us that, for your part, you need time to take the decisions necessary for you to comply with Parliament’s procedures. You must choose: either you want extra time, and we grant you discharge later, or you want discharge quickly and you make haste yourself’. The second problem that we have had is a problem relating to coherence between the three votes, namely the vote on discharge, the vote on the approval of accounts and the vote on the resolution. There are three different votes for a single decision, which may lead to inconsistencies between the three. The report before you, which we firmly support in the Group, resolves the problem by combining the discharge procedure and the procedure for approval of accounts and by giving the President the possibility of avoiding putting a resolution to the vote which would contradict the provisions relating to the vote on discharge by Parliament. The third problem, which was the most serious and which we have encountered on several occasions, was the problem of majority. As soon as we had the possibility of granting, postponing or refusing to grant discharge, we were faced with two risks. The first was that no vote might be accepted, with a majority of both the Commission and then Parliament voting against all three of these options. We were at an impasse. The second risk was related to the equality of votes, both in committee and in Parliament, whereas the Treaty obliges us to take a decision. The report before you does not resolve this problem in an entirely satisfactory manner, although, in my view, it does resolve it in the best possible way. The report essentially proposes to divide the procedure into two phases: during the first phase, we shall choose between granting and postponement, at the proposal of the Committee on Budgetary Control; during the second phase, if discharge has not been granted once the postponement has expired, we shall choose whether to refuse or grant discharge. If one option were rejected, the opposite option would then be adopted and we would therefore avoid the danger of an impasse that we have constantly flirted with, in the Committee on Budgetary Control. This is a very good system and we give our very strong support to the compromise that the main groups have reached. In this respect, I would particularly like to thank the rapporteur for his comments regarding the withdrawal of his request for a separate vote. A compromise is an achievement, we shall stand by this and we thank you for standing by this too. Mr Martin, I wish you good luck.

Political group: PPE-DE