Europese Commissie bespreekt nieuw boekhoudsysteem met EU-Rekenkamer (en)

The College yesterday met the Court of Auditors. The exchange of views allowed to take stock of the progress made in the improvement of the monitoring and control systems in the main budget areas, and of steps envisaged by the Commission for attaining a positive statement of assurance from the European Court of Auditors.

The current discharge debate showed that all institutions have a mutual interest in meeting the requirements of the Treaty : for the Commission to implement the EU budget, the European Parliament to exercise its political control, and the Court of Auditors to audit the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of underlying transactions as well as to examine whether the financial management has been sound.

The Commission is fully committed to its responsibility for the execution of the EU budget, and Vice-President Siim Kallas will propose before the summer a roadmap to obtain a positive DAS.

President Weber stated: "The Court of Auditors' aim is to maximise the impact and efficiency of its audit work through an approach which seeks to improve results rather than concentrate on listing errors. In order to help the Commission with its task to further improve the supervisory and control systems of the EU budget at all levels, the Court is committed to further developing its DAS approach. This allows the Court to even better measure progress and point out more precisely where improvements are needed."

Commissioner Kallas stated : "I want to be clear that this is not about asking the Court to be less critical of our work. In fact, we benefit greatly from the Court's critical scrutiny. What we agree on is to look for solutions, within the roles of each institution, that will help us prevent the Court's opinions from being distorted and misused for political purposes. We are therefore very grateful for the advice we received today on our work to develop a Road Map to a positive DAS."