EAGGF: discharge for clearance of 1992 EAGGF accounts

Adopting the resolution by Jan MULDER (ELDR, NL), the committee (chairman: Diemut THEATO (PPE, D)) adjourned its decision to give discharge to the clearance of the EAGGF accounts for 1992 until such time as the European Commission increased the number of officials in charge of this mission (+ 15 posts by transfer). The decision to adjourn, which will be tabled before the plenary in Strasbourg in February, also calls on the Commission to finalize and clearly define the rules and criteria applied in order to calculate flat-rate corrections. The Committee on Budgetary Control called for the addition of a fourth correction rate of 25% of the sum received by the Member State in question (the current rates are 2%, 5% and 10%). The European Commission has stated that it is willing to make the necessary changes. In addition to the financial correction applied to Ireland for beef (ECU 30.3 million), the Committee on Budgetary Control also criticized the Commission decision to reduce the correction applicable to Greece for the cotton industry, where controls were clearly insufficient, by ECU 96.2 million. It called on the Commission to make provision for an appropriate financial correction for Greek cotton when the 1993 accounts were cleared. Finally, the Committee on Budgetary Control insisted that the amount of the corrections should be geared solely to the amount of the loss to the Community budget and warned the European Commission to end its practice of "negotiating" the amount of the financial correction on the basis of the efforts expected by Member States to counteract their shortcomings as regards checks or risk being refused the discharge.�