Auditors set to deliver a mixed verdict

Date: 09/11/00

By John Shelley

EU COURT of Auditors President Jan Karlsson is expected to declare next week that he cannot give the European Commission's accounts for 1999 the all-clear.

But he will nevertheless praise the internal reforms now being introduced by Vice-President Neil Kinnock.

The watchdog's annual report, which will be presented to MEPs next Wednesday (15 November), will state that the number of errors in the Commission's books during the year in which former President Jacques Santer's team resigned in disgrace are too high for the Court to issue a 'statement of assurance'- its way of saying the accounts are satisfactory.

"The report will show that there are still some very large sums which have been either understated or overstated," said one insider.

Karlsson will, however, say that new reforms should help tighten up financial controls in future, while stressing that a final verdict will have to wait until they have been fully implemented.

The Court's decision not to issue a statement of assurance will come as no surprise, because it has refused to do so for several years running. Nor will it be seen as a strong criticism of the Prodi Commission, because the figures being audited date mostly from before his team took office.

Karlsson will shy away from giving specific estimates as to the number of errors made in payments and will not make direct comparisons with previous years. He will instead simply state that the rate of errors remains too high, although those who have read the report say the tone of the document is more positive than in recent years.

The paper is also expected to stress, as in previous years, that the most irregularities and accounting 'gaps' occur in areas where EU money is handed to member states for distribution - most notably, funding for regional and agricultural spending.

EU Court of Auditors President Jan Karlsson is expected to declare that he cannot give the European Commission's accounts for 1999 the all-clear. But he will nevertheless praise the internal reforms now being introduced by Vice-President Neil Kinnock.