EU Financial Management

On the subject of the auditors’ inability to give a statement of assurance, they and independent reports by respected European parliamentarians have identified one of the problems at the heart of the matter as individual nation states’ inability or unwillingness to account for money that they end up spending. There is no point in denying that. The Court of Auditors has identified it as a major reason why the qualification of accounts is to continue. There has to be co-operation between the nation states and the Commission if we are going to crack this nut and eventually arrive at a point at which the accounts do not have the qualification attached to them. That is simply plain fact. If we do not get the nation states signed up to working in partnership with the Commission on these issues, we are always going to struggle.