Activites

• 1997/03/17 Final act published in Official Journal
• 1997/02/21 Debate in Parliament
  • T4-0076/1997 summary

    In adopting the interim report by Mr Jan MULDER (ELDR, NL) on the clearance of the EAGGF accounts for 1992 Parliament condemned two Commission decisions: - the first concerned its disregard of the financial controller's refusal to give his approval and to the reduction by ECU 30.3 million of the amount of the financial correction relating to the public storage of beef in Ireland; - the second, in the case of production aid for cotton in Greece, provided for the reduction from 25 to 10% of the rate of correction for 1991 and 1992 and the reduction by some ECU 96.2 million of the financial correction. While refraining for overriding reasons in the interests of legal certainty from calling on the Commission to revise its decisions Parliament therefore deferred its decision giving a discharge until the Commission: - had strengthened the staff of the unit responsible for the clearance of accounts by 15 posts (through transfers) as had already been requested in its resolution of 17 April 1996, - (the Commission having added to the current rates of 2%, 5% and 10% a fourth rate of 25% in its rules on the calculation of flat-rate corrections) had clarified the criteria relating to the application of these rates and made it clear that the amount of the corrections must be geared solely to the amount of the loss to the Community budget. Parliament also addressed a warning to the Commission which, at the risk of being refused the discharge with the associated political implications, should in future end its practice of negotiating the amount of the financial corrections on the basis of the efforts expected by the Member States to counteract their shortcomings as regards checks. �

• 1997/02/06 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A4-0043/1997
• 1996/05/20 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 1996/04/10 Non-legislative basic document published
  • N4-0259/1996 summary

    In January 1997, Mr Martin ENGWIRDA, Member of the Court of Auditors, submitted to Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control the special report No 1/ 97 on the Commission decisions on the clearance of EAGGF accounts for 1992. The report was drawn up at Parliament's request and serves as a basis for its decision on the discharge to be granted to the Commission. The latter is required to clear the annual accounts submitted by the Member States for expenditure incurred by them and funded from the EAGGF Guarantee Section and must ensure that only operations which have been carried out in a regular manner are financed by the Community budget. The Commission decisions dealt with in this special report, were adopted in April and November 1996 and entailed corrections in the amount of expenditure for the different sectors of almost ECU 900m (895.1m). The Court stresses the inadequacy of the resources allocated by the Commission to its inspections, particular as regard staff, and stresses the considerable delays by the Commission in notifying the Member States of the results of its inspections. The Courts main criticism concerns the fact that 37.5% of the corrections made in the clearance for 1992, i.e., a sum of ECU 336m, were implemented using the flat-rate method and this practice should be restricted in line with the conclusions of Parliament's discharge resolution for 1991. In addition, the Court considers that the application of the conciliation procedure for the first time in 1996 led to further delays in clearance, even though use of the procedure was deemed to be a 'positive development'. The Court also condemns the Commission's practice of reducing the size of the corrections when it considers that Member States are taking steps to improve their procedures and correct the shortcomings in their management. �

Documents

• Non-legislative basic document published: N4-0259/1996
• Committee report tabled for plenary, single reading: A4-0043/1997
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T4-0076/1997

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)