41 Amendments of Jorgo CHATZIMARKAKIS related to 2008/2186(DEC)
Amendment 3 #
Paragraph 1
1. .........Grants the Commission discharge in respect of the implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2008;
Amendment 7 #
Paragraph 1
1. .........Grants the Director of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2008;
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
Amendment 8 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
Paragraph 32
Amendment 9 #
Paragraph 1
1. .........Grants the Director of the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and innovation discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2008;
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33
Paragraph 33
Amendment 10 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
34. Regrets that it does not have sufficient useful, comprehensive and reliable information in order to carry out an effective oversight of the granting of budget support and budget support results;
Amendment 11 #
Paragraph 1
1. .........Grants the Director of the Executive Agency for Health and Consumers discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2008;
Amendment 11 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34 a (new)
Paragraph 34 a (new)
34a. Calls for the ending of the previous system of consecutive EDFs by means of the full consolidation of the financing of EU/ACP cooperation in the EU budget in order to ensure parliamentary oversight of the allocation of resources under the EDFs;
Amendment 13 #
Paragraph 1
1. .........Grants the Director of the Trans- European Transport Network Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2008;
Amendment 15 #
Paragraph 1
1. .........Approves the closure of the accounts of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2008;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 67
Paragraph 67
Amendment 20 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Welcomes the ECA's statement to the effect that the annual accounts of the European Communities present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Communities as of 31 December 2007, and the results of their operations and cash flows for the year then ended (Chapter 1, DAS, paragraph VII); calls the Commission nevertheless to pay due attention to the comments presented by the ECA in order to improve the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the basic accounting data;
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Deplores the fact, nonetheless, that in extremely important Community spending areas (agricultural spending that does not come under the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS), cohesion, research, energy and transport, external actions, education and culture), the ECA notes, once again, that complicated or unclear legal requirements, firstly, result in a large number of errors at final- beneficiary level and, secondly, result in only partially effective monitoring and control systems and that that complexity is instrumental in preventing the ECA from issuing a positive DAS (Chapter 1, DAS, paragraphs X and XI); calls therefore on the Commission to conduct an analysis to determine the extent of, and possible solutions to, the problems; stresses therefore the need for simplification of the underlying rules and regulations in order to achieve a positive DAS;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Welcomes the fact that annual summaries of audits by the Member States are being made available as from 2008, and the evaluation and declarations presented in the 2007 annual activity reports of the Structural Funds directorates-general, but; calls on the Commission to undertake efforts so that these annual summaries can be published together with the response of the Commission; observes with concern that, owing to disparities in presentation, the ECA considers that those annual summaries do not yet constitute a reliable appraisal of the operation and effectiveness of the control systems; welcomes in this light the revised Guidance Note of the Commission aimed at ensuring higher quality in the annual summaries for 2008;
Amendment 37 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes, however, the Court’s observation that it is not yet possible to determine whether the Action Plan has had a measurable impact on the supervisory and control systems and ultimately on the regularity of transactions (point 2.28 of the 2008 Annual Report), and urges the Commission to take appropriate action to ensure that, for the 2009 discharge, indicators are in place to measure the impact of the Action Plan;
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. RegDeplorets also the fact that, to date, it has not received detailed information from the Commission on an assessment and comparative analysis of the initial annual summaries presented, and considers it of utmost importance that the quality of those annual summaries be reported on in order to ensure that value is added to the process by, among other things, identifying common problems, possible solutions and best practices and making this information available to all relevant parties, and to the public throughout the discharge process;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Considers that the Court’s assessment, made each year since the Maastricht Treaty, on how the Commission manages the EU funds has proven to be a useful tool for improving the management of these funds, and recognises that the Commission has made great efforts to improve management; calls on the Member States, however, to show a greater commitment to improving the spending of funds;
Amendment 41 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Considers that the annual summaries which Member States have to provide of available audits and declarations, pursuant to Article 44 of the IIA of 17 May 2006, ought to be a first step towards the introduction of national management declarations in all Member States; asks the Commission to declare what it has done in this respect taking into account previous discharge resolutions; calls on the Commission urgently to undertake all necessary efforts to upgrade the annual summaries so that they carry the same political weight as the national management declarations;
Amendment 45 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 35
Paragraph 35
35. Calls on the Commission in addition, on the basis of the annual summaries received, to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of each Member State's national system for the administration and control of Community funds, together with an estimate of the cost of national systems for the control of Community funds; reminds the Commission of its commitment to improve the quality of the annual summaries of the Member States in order to make them useful instruments to mitigate the risk of errors for the years to come; asks the Commission to live up to its commitment in this respect;
Amendment 51 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Notes some improvement in recoveries, but nevertheless remains concerned about the problems which subsist regarding irregularly disbursed Community funds and the poor quality of the information supplied on the correction mechanism applied at Member State level; draws attention to the urgent need for a 100 % recovery rate in respect of funds that have been falsely issued;
Amendment 51 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43
Paragraph 43
43. Calls on the Commission, having regard to the seriousness of the situation, to quickly organise an interinstitutional conference involving all stakeholders in Community fund management and control (representatives of the Member States in the Council at the highest level, of the Commission, of the ECA, of national audit bodies, of national parliaments with responsibility for oversight over Member State governments, of the European Parliament, etc. and all other relevant actors in the discharge process) so as to embark on a comprehensive debate on the current discharge procedure system, on which the DAS has been negative for 14 years, and to give thought to the reforms needed in order to obtain a positive DAS as soon as possible;
Amendment 52 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 44
Paragraph 44
44. Takes the view that the conference should culminate in tangible proposals with regard to improving the management and control of Community spending and, indeed, for some aspects, a degree of harmonisation, and proposes that, during the forthcoming budgetary procedure, its Committee on Budgetsthe Parliament gives the Commission the resources needed to mount the study and the conference;
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
Paragraph 32
32. Welcomes the information provided to Parliament by the Commission on the annual summaries received in 2009 and calls on the Commission to make all annual summaries of all Member States public in order to enhance transparency and public accountability; invites the Commission, on the basis of the annual summaries received, to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of each Member State’s national system for the administration and control of EU funds;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
34. Considers that a comparative analysis should be forwarded to Parliament, the Council and the Court by late 2010 and should be made public soon thereafter;
Amendment 64 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36
Paragraph 36
36. Welcomes the voluntary initiatives taken by certain Member States (Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom) to approve the adoption of a national declaration on the management of EU funding, but regrets the fact that, despite those initiatives, most other Member States have yet to introduce them;
Amendment 69 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40
Paragraph 40
40. Calls on the Commission to propose, within the framework of the review of the Financial Regulation, the obligation for Member States to issue national management declarations signed at an appropriate political level and certified by their national supreme audit body, as a means of administrative relief as well as improved administration of funds under shared managementitutions;
Amendment 70 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 51a (new)
Paragraph 51a (new)
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40 a (new)
Paragraph 40 a (new)
40a. Welcomes the results of the Interparliamentary Conference on ‘Improving National Accountability of EU funds’, held in The Hague on 28-29 January 2010)1; agrees that, to be effective, instruments used for the management and accountability of EU funding must give evidence of a sound audit basis, allow scrutiny by national parliaments and allow verification by national supreme audit institutions; calls on the Commission to ensure that these instruments and the results thereof are made public;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 53
Paragraph 53
53. Is concerned, however, at the ECA's criticisms of errors in interpreting the provisions of the regulations and at the finding that the cumulative effect of all such errors, over a number of years, will be significant if they are not corrected, and calls on the Commission to take the appropriate measures, consisting of at least simplifying the policy together with ensuring clearer and consistent control systems, to correct the errors as quickly as possible and to inform Parliament in late 2009 about the measures taken;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 46
Paragraph 46
46. Calls on the Commission to continue to present regular assessments of the integrated internal control system, and calls for even better and more explicit coverage – in the annual activity reports and the synthesis report – of the functioning of Commission departments’ and Member States’ shared-management systems, as is already done by the Commission’s DG for Regional Policy in its annual activity report;
Amendment 88 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 50 a (new)
Paragraph 50 a (new)
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 64
Paragraph 64
64. Also reminds the Commission of the ECA's recommendation to make as much use of possible, without undermining the effectiveness of spending, of the scope for simplification provided for by the spending rules, and calls on it to launch a discussion exercise on new simplification measures that might be adopted, including computerisation of the system; welcomes in this light the Simplification Working Group set up by the Commission and expects the Commission to come forward with concrete proposals for the period 2007-2013 for simplification based on the outcome of the proceedings of the Simplification Working Group;
Amendment 96 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 56
Paragraph 56
Amendment 98 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 58
Paragraph 58
58. Calls on the Commission to organise an interinstitutional discussion involving in the initial phase, at the highest level, representatives of the Council, of the Commission, of the Court of Auditors and of Parliament, with a view to embarking on a comand in the second phase reprehsensive debate on the current discharge procedure systatives from the Member Statems, on which the DAS has been negative for 15 years, and to give thought to the main reforms needed in order to obtain a positive DAS as soon as possiblef national parliaments and supreme audit institutions, with a view to embarking on a comprehensive debate on the current discharge procedure system;
Amendment 101 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 59
Paragraph 59
59. Takes the view that this debate should culminate in tangible proposals aimed at improving the management and control of EU spending and concerning, inter alia, national management declarations, the structure of the DASharmonisation of the points in time at which Member States report their results of controls with regard to shared management of funds, the concept of tolerable risk of error based on cost-benefit analyses and the simplification of rules;
Amendment 104 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 65
Paragraph 65
65. Welcomes the fact that the information on EU funding beneficiaries is to be published more widely and ion an easily accessible and user-friendly fashionwebsite, and calls for standardisation of the structure and presentation of national, regional and international sites accessible from thea central portal;
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 75
Paragraph 75
75. Welcomes the undertakings by the new Commission to unblock discussions in the Council about the reform of OLAF and to come forward, as a matter of urgency and at the latest by July 2010, with the promised and long-awaited Commission’s ‘reflection paper’;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 77
Paragraph 77
77. Wishes to have early sight of the proposal for the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) as envisaged in Article 86 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union; wishes to be involved in the discussions about the establishment of an EPPO, which should start very soon; takes the view that the EPPO should primarily be responsible for the protection of the financial interests of the Union, but that consideration should be given to the question whether the scope of competences of the EPPO should be extended to protection of the euro and the stability of the monetary systems of the euro;
Amendment 118 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 78
Paragraph 78
78. Stresses its proposals regarding the profile of an appropriate candidate for the post of Director-General of OLAF, as contained in Parliament’s above-mentioned first-reading position of 20 November 2008, and calls for the successful candidate to be appointed very quickly; takes the view that the terms of the vacancy notice need to reflect this demand and stresses that the entire selection procedure needs to be carried out in an interinstitutional framework which fully respects Parliament’s prerogatives;
Amendment 123 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 104 a (new)
Paragraph 104 a (new)
104a. Takes note of the efforts made by the Commissioner in charge of enlargement in order to inform the Parliament about the situation in both Bulgaria and Romania and of his intention to maintain the competent committee of the Parliament constantly informed of developments on this issue;