merrion street

Today in Brussels Brian Hayes, Minister of State at the Department of Finance, presented the European Council's recommendations on the implementation of the 2011 EU Budget by the European Commission.

This process known as 'budget discharge' requires the Irish EU Council Presidency to present a detailed examination of the European Court of Auditors' (ECA) latest annual report before the European Parliament.

Presenting these findings before the Parliament's Budget Control Committee, Minister Hayes noted that at a time of "economic and financial difficulty the sound financial management of EU funds is ever more important", he also stressed the ECA's findings on the need to simplify EU policy objectives to ensure greater clarity, coherence and ease of implementation.

"The ongoing discussions on the [policy] programmes for the new multi-annual financial framework provide a good opportunity to achieve progress towards simplification."

Responding to comments by Committee Chair Michael Theurer on improving relations between the Institutions in support of this goal Minister Hayes spoke of agreement on improved relations as in the interest of all concerned.

He also welcomed Euro-deputy Grässle's stressing the need to demonstrate the effectiveness of future programme funding in critical areas such as addressing youth unemployment. Minister Hayes stated that "we need a much clearer understanding and auditing of objectives as we go into the next multi-annual programme, taxpayers demand that we deliver on our objectives."

Minister Hayes will participate in subsequent discussions on this at the Plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg next April.

A webcast of this morning's proceedings can be viewed at... http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/cont/home.html