Mr President, thank you very much for letting me take the floor once again. I would like to tell my fellow Members a little about the issue of nominating the members of the European Court of Auditors. We carried out a procedure in the Committee on Budgetary Control, as we are instructed to do by the Rules of Procedure, and in which we were guided by the provisions of the Treaty, which state that what is most important in order to be a member of the European Court of Auditors is professional qualifications and, above all, total independence. Ten Members completed a written questionnaire, we received the answers and the respective curriculum vitae were passed on. We then carried out an individual public hearing for each proposed member, and then, behind closed doors, we held discussions, just amongst the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control. In order to include the new Members, who belong to our Parliament as of 1 May since the accession countries are now legally full members of the European Union, we carried out the vote in the Committee on Budgetary Control last Monday, 3 May. The result of the voting, in the form of nine reports – and I want to make this clear now and I will explain it in a moment – is before this House. We will hold a ballot – a secret one – on nine individual reports; on the reports by the Committee on Budgetary Control, which include its recommendation concerning the candidacies. The result was that the large majority of the candidates received the approval of the majority in the committee. Two out of the ten candidates did not gain this majority, one of whom – namely the Cypriot candidate – withdrew his candidature in a letter to the Council. That leaves the Slovak candidate, who, unfortunately, did not gain the support of the majority in the Committee on Budgetary Control. I would like to make it very clear that we have a great responsibility in voting now on the reports of the Committee on Budgetary Control since the members of the European Court of Auditors are appointed for six years. There are no transitional periods like there are in other institutions. They will, therefore, belong to the European Court of Auditors for six years, and so the Committee on Budgetary Control was also very conscientious and carried out a very careful investigation. Also, everything that was carried out behind closed doors, took place in secret. I would thank all of the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control for this very complex and responsible work and I now put forward these reports. I would like to make one more request: after this totally thorough procedure, it would be desirable for a future Parliament to not just be consulted on the nomination of members of the European Court of Auditors, but also to be able to give its approval to them. (Applause) I have two further announcements to make. In the translations of the reports in a whole range of languages an incorrect verdict of the Committee on Budgetary Control was printed, which has now been corrected. A positive verdict in the committee was recorded for Mr Molnár in the Danish, French, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Portuguese and Swedish versions. Apart from the Hungarian, all versions – and that was the situation at 11.21 a.m. – have since been corrected. I ask you to be aware that the Committee on Budgetary Control does not produce standard results of the voting, but that a verdict is in actual fact different, as I have explained. Since this is my last appearance in this Parliament, I would like to thank everyone in this House, including you, Mr President, for such fantastic cooperation and for an incredibly exciting time and I would like to wish all of you as individuals the very best for the future. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE