Uitgaven 2009 van Europese Commissie goedgekeurd door EP-Commissie Begrotingscontrole (en)

The European Commission's 2009 budget spending was approved by Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee on Monday, under the "budget discharge" procedure, after the Commission had given undertakings, inter alia to step up pressure on EU Member States to take more political responsibility for, and improve their supervision of, their national authorities' spending of EU funds. Parliament as a whole will vote on the discharge decision at its May plenary session.

The choice as to whether to postpone or grant the discharge was a difficult one, said Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (ALDE, DE), the MEP steering it through Parliament. "I still have a problem with the lack of transparency when it comes to spending by Member States under what we call 'shared management'.  It is hard to explain to our citizens that we can't say exactly what 80% of the EU's budget is spent on and how. But this is a problem that cannot be addressed by the Commission alone, even though they are responsible in the end", he said. The discharge recommendation was approved with 21 votes in favour, two against and no abstentions.

Commission undertakings

In previous meetings, Budgetary Control Committee MEPs had stressed that they wanted to see better management and control systems put in place. They had also underlined the need for national politicians to take political responsibility for the way the EU money is spent in their countries, by signing "national management declarations". Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta (Taxation, Customs, Anti-fraud and Audit), agreed to work on a policy template to this end and to recommend that Member States give it their political endorsement.

Mr Šemeta  also responded positively to Parliament's other wishes, including the systematic use of automatic interruption or suspension of payments in cases where Member States' control and management systems prove deficient, improving recovery of incorrectly-spent funds and putting more effort into making the rules on spending EU money less complex.

EU cannot afford scandals or mismanagement of funds

"Fortunately Commissioner Šemeta has agreed to step up the attempts to present Member States' performance transparently and thus to convince them to do better", said Mr Chatzimarkakis, adding that "I am also pleased that corrective mechanisms are being put into place so that the bad guys will feel the financial consequences in case of mismanagement. In times of austerity, which also put pressure on the EU budget, we cannot afford scandals or money being misused."

Next steps

Parliament as a whole will vote on the discharge decision at its May plenary session.

Background

The European Parliament is the EU budget discharge authority. Once annual accounts are audited and finalised, Parliament decides - on a recommendation by the Council of Ministers - whether or not to grant discharge to the Commission and other EU bodies for their spending in 2009.

The discharge for budget implementation is the decision by which the European Parliament "releases" the Commission from its responsibility for managing a given budget, by marking the end of that budget's operation.

In the chair: Luigi DE MAGISTRIS (ALDE, IT)