Mr President, representatives of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the discharge procedure is a complicated exercise. We have to assess a budget two years after it has been implemented by the Commission, while taking into consideration the budget which is currently being framed, the improvements needed for the implementation of the budget and the practical realisation of the political goals of the European Union. This already complex situation is further complicated by the peculiar situation we have found ourselves in for almost a year now, to wit, the discrediting of the European Union to a certain extent following the resignation of the Santer Commission last year; a new Commission, in which most of the Commissioners were not members of the Commission which was led to resign; a new Parliament, with many Members facing this discharge procedure for the first time; and reforms or proposed reforms directly concerning European Union finances. I am thinking of the Structural Funds for the things already achieved, and the Financial Regulation for the things already achieved. This is the context in which we received Mrs Stauner’s report, a report which, unfortunately, makes only a limited assessment of the Commission’s implementation of the budget for the financial year 1998 against the yardstick of the political goals which the European Union set itself. If it is unthinkable and intolerable for public money to be used for irregularities and fraud, and if we must both dismantle the mechanisms enabling such abuses to take place and denounce the people involved, then we can also question the methods used to draw up this report. This report was unacceptable in its initial form because it did not give us the material to form an opinion as to whether or not the budget for 1998 was correctly implemented by the Commission. It has been possible to adopt a compromise, but the fact remains that we find the explanatory statement unsatisfactory, as it does not reflect the new direction of the report, and portrays relations between our institutions as frozen in an attitude of defiance, at a time when we and our fellow citizens are hoping that productive cooperation in the interests of improved cohesion between our States will develop. The content and the arguments presented in other more specific reports provide no more justification for postponement of discharge. Let me refer, by way of example, to Mr Khanbhai’s report, which revealed some problems in the ECSC accounts, including, among other things, the solvency ratio and the transfer of property, although the Commission and the High Authority are currently reducing these problems with a view to the expiry of the ECSC Treaty in 2002. In this specific situation, it would seem that the current discharge procedure would be a perilous exercise. Should this not require giving a more precise framework to the work of Members of Parliament within the Committee on Budgetary Control? I shall conclude by mentioning the internal reform of the Commission. Among other objectives, the Commission has set itself the task of improving financial control by various means: new structures, responsibilities of authorising officers, and financial controllers within each directorate-general. We must be attentive to ensuring that this reform makes it possible to achieve the set objective and that it requires the various financial operators within the directorates-general to assume real responsibility. It also seems essential that, in combination with the determination to reduce irregularity and fraud effectively, the reform should be able to look into the implementation of our policies within Member States, where one of the problems arising concerns payment deadlines and the inadequacy of some payment appropriations. IN THE CHAIR: INGO IEDRICHVice-President

Political group: PSE