Europese Rekenkamer presenteert werkprogramma 2005 (en)

In the event of any divergence of spoken text from written text, the spoken text shall prevail.

Introduction

Mr Chairman, Members of the European parliament,

I take great pleasure today in addressing you for the first time in my new capacity as President of the European court of auditors to present to you the work programme of our institution for 2005.

Last year, my predecessor, Mr Juan Manuel Fabra Vallés, informed you of the organisational changes made by the Court in the context of the enlargement. I am now going to present to you the first work programme for a Court of auditors with 25 Members.

My presentation will be divided into two main parts:

- first of all, at your request, I will go back over the work programme for 2004 and comment on its implementation in some detail, and also tell you which publications arising from this programme will be issued in the course of this year;

- the presentation of the 2005 work programme will, of course, take up the bulk of my presentation; I will in particular draw attention to the tasks regarded as the most important, in terms of recurrent tasks as well as selected tasks.

In the conclusion, I will draw attention to certain aspects which seem to me to be essential and which go beyond the long series of tasks included in our annual work programme.

Implementation of the 2004 work programme and details of publications to be issued in the course of 2005

All the recurrent tasks were carried out as planned, and that included the 2003 DAS, the follow-up of previous observations, the analysis of budgetary management, the audit of the satellite bodies, the operational efficiency of the management of the European central bank, the European investment fund's own resources and the measures managed by the European investment bank on a mandate from the Commission. Two opinions were published, in particular one arising from a request from the Parliament concerning the "single audit" model and a proposal for a Community Internal Control Framework.

As regards the horizontal tasks, the plan is for the Special Report on the Commission's evaluation policy to be published in the second half of this year. The Special Report on the efficiency and effectiveness of OLAF, which I know the Budgetary control committee is eager to see, will very shortly be undergoing the contradictory procedure, and publication will follow as quickly as possible after that.

Lastly, as regards the selected tasks, I will give you some information about these under each of the headings of the Financial Perspective.

As regards agricultural policy, the Special Report on forestry measures within rural development policy is the next subject on the agenda of your meeting today. The Report on the Commission's management and supervision of the measures to control foot and mouth disease and of the related expenditure was presented to you during November 2004. The third area for which we announced that we were going to complete our work in 2004 concerns the common organisation of the market in the wine sector. We now plan to publish a report towards the end of this year.

As far as structural measures are concerned, we are also planning to publish a report towards the end of this year on the analysis of ex post evaluation procedures relating to structural measures for the period 1994 - 1999. This should likewise be the case for the audit concerning measures to prevent early school-leaving and, in the field of internal policies and research, for the audit of the TREN-Transport programme.

In the field of external action, the report on the devolution process is on the agenda for your meeting the day after tomorrow. In the area of the EDF, the work on the reform of public finances in the recipient countries has come to an end and a report is planned for the autumn.

The work in the area of administrative expenditure on translation and interpreting expenses is also finished and publication is likewise planned for this year.

Lastly - and this ties up with the next part of my presentation, namely the tasks planned for the 2005 programme -, I would just like to give you a very brief explanation of the sequence of the work for a selected task that results in a special report published by the Court of auditors. First of all, a preliminary study is carried out, so that the auditors can acquire a better appreciation of the area to be audited and can ascertain whether an audit is appropriate at this particular point in time and can actually be carried out. Next, at the beginning of this year we set ourselves the ambitious objective that from now on the time taken from the approval of the audit planning memorandum, which is the planning phase that follows the preliminary study, up until the publication of the report following its adoption by the Court should ideally not exceed a period of 18 months. This information may help you to understand how much time is needed from the inclusion of a task in an annual work programme to the publication of the final result.

The 2005 Work Programme

My presentation of the 2005 work programme itself will be divided into two parts: first of all, the recurrent audit tasks and then the tasks selected individually in the light of potential risks, financial importance and the interest shown by the budgetary authorities, the European parliament and the Council.

The recurrent tasks

The Court's main recurrent task is the Statement of Assurance, known as the DAS. As for the previous financial year, the legality/regularity aspect of the DAS will focus on four sources of information and will be based on the specific assessments relating to the various chapters of the Financial Perspective. For each specific assessment, the four sources are:

- an appraisal of the operation of the supervisory systems and controls;

- substantive testing of the underlying transactions;

- an examination of the declarations of the Directors-General;

- the work of other auditors.

In 2005, we will work on developing the DAS methodology in the context of new parameters, including for example enlargement, activity-based budgeting (ABB) and activity-based management (ABM), the new financial perspective and the reform of the common agricultural policy and structural Funds. The objective is to answer more and more closely the needs of the users of the DAS, for example by continuing our efforts to provide information on positive and negative trends, by financial perspective area, from one year to another. It will not be possible to indicate progress achieved by individual Member States using only the results of the systems analyses and substantive tests carried out by the Court. The transfer of responsibility to the national authorities must ensue the existence of sound supervisory and control systems. These latter should provide timely, accurate and appropriate information on the underlying transactions. This information is indispensable for the Commission if it is to have a solid basis for the implementation of the budget and should also be part of the Directors-General's annual activity reports and the Commission's synthesis report.

Once it has checked that this information gives a faithful picture of the situation, the Court could include it in its own evaluation of the progress that has been achieved. We will also go on with our work of analysing the design and implementation of the plan for modernising the accounting system.

I am not going to list the other recurrent tasks, which are, by definition, the same every year.

The selected tasks

You will find a detailed list of the selected tasks in the summary document. I would just like to draw your attention here to a number of these tasks, grouped under each of the main headings of the Financial Perspective.

As regards the area of agricultural policy, this year we will complete our work on the new clearance of accounts procedure, the agri-environmental measure, the quality of the on-the-spot checks carried out within the framework of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS), the beef slaughter premiums, the measures to encourage the marketing of stocks of milk and milk products, and the common organisation of the market in the protein crops sector.

We will continue to work on the effectiveness of the operational programmes of producer organisations in the fruit and vegetable sector and on fines and penalties. We will also for the first time embark on work in the new Member States concerning:

- the accreditation of the EAGGF paying agencies;

- the reliability of the checks carried out within the framework of the Integrated Administration and Control System.

As regards rural development, the work, which was initially planned to start earlier, will focus on the expenditure on investment in farms.

As regards structural measures, this year the Court will start work on the mid-term evaluation of Structural measures assistance for the period 2000 to 2006, the checks on large-scale projects and the EQUAL Community Initiative. Preliminary studies have been carried out, but the start of the audit work had to be postponed until this year.

Audits are also to be performed in the area of additionality.

In respect of internal policies and research, the audit on the Galileo Joint Undertaking will be continued this year and work will start on audits on the Sixth Framework Programme, the scientific and socio-economic impact of the financing programmes for research, technological development and demonstration measures (RTD) and on the Community action programme in the field of public health.

As regards external action, a start has been made on the audit of the programmes with an impact on the environment. This topic concerns both budgetary expenditure and expenditure under the European Development Funds (EDFs). The measures to accompany the reform of economic and social structures in the Mediterranean countries (MEDA) will be examined later in the year and several audits on the topic of Community Assistance to Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation (CARDS) and technical assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States and Mongolia (TACIS) are also going to start.

As for pre-accession aid, the Court is going to start work on the effectiveness of the pre-accession aid granted to Turkey; this was already planned for 2004 but had to be postponed because implementation of the devolution process did not begin in Turkey until last year. The performance of the PHARE investment projects in Bulgaria and Romania, future applicant countries, will also be analysed.

In the area of administrative expenditure, work is continuing on building expenditure and on contracts entered into with the Publications Office. Furthermore, an audit on the implementation of the new Staff Regulations is planned for the second half of the year.

Lastly, as regards revenue, two audits planned for 2005 will deal with the operational activities of Eurostat and will in both cases focus on the reliability of statistics on the Gross National Income. As you know, these data serve not only as the basis for calculating about two thirds of the revenue but may also be important in determining whether a Member State has an excessive deficit. As regards the administrative expenditure of Eurostat, I must point out here that this expenditure is audited as part of the Court's audit of the administrative expenditure of the Commission as a whole. The remuneration of Eurostat staff and the vast bulk of Eurostat's other administrative expenditure are in fact directly managed by the Commission.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would like first of all to underline the importance I attach to continuing to develop the excellent cooperation that exists between our two institutions in general and with the Budgetary control committee in particular.

The Work Programme which I have just presented to you is the first such programme for a Court with 25 Members and it includes the first audits in the new Member States on topics other than such matters as pre-accession aid.

For the Court, 2005 will also be a new year of reform based on continuity. That will be the case not only in the context of our discussions as to how the activity-based budgeting and activity-based management introduced by the Commission can best be taken into account in our organisation and our work, but also for a number of initiatives which are going to be launched at the same time within the Court. By further developing our DAS approach, our audit methodology in general and our IT strategy and by improving the clarity of our communication, we are endeavouring to achieve our aim of fulfilling our Treaty obligations better and better. We consider it essential that we provide the budgetary authorities with relevant observations and recommendations which serve as a vital tool for them in successfully performing their tasks as discharge authorities.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention.