Mr. Tony Murphy:

There is a process where we issue a report. I would distinguish between our audit reports and these opinions. They are different. With the audit reports there is a sort of clearing process with the Commission which is our main auditee. We generally do not issue recommendations directly to member states but to the Commission, which may then have to try to cajole member states to go down a certain road. There is a clearing process with the Commission.

If you look at any of our reports a reply from the Commission is included. This is part of the process. It accepts or rejects recommendations and explains why. We then go to the budgetary control committee in the Parliament, which looks at the report. I have to say that 90% of our recommendations are accepted. That is already a good start. When we go back two or three years later, we see that 80% of those are generally implemented. It works quite well. Some people do not like having a recommendation in a report that is not accepted, but I say that there should be some. We do not have to agree on everything.