- and the financial services employees' group (Uni-Europa) for trade unions.

In my present position I am responsible for supervising the Certifying Authority Department, the Economy and Finance Department and the Legal Office. This involves analysing, implementing and improving the process of certifying expenditure for the European Commission, controlling the certification process, cooperating with other audit institutions, supervising budget implementation and providing accounting and bookkeeping services for monies from structural funds and from the Cohesion Fund, for monitoring legislative processes relatin ...[+++]g to EU and national law.

Moreover, the preparation of the end of year accounts is largely based on information from outside the accounting system whose reliability is not guaranteed by the central accounting services.

It stresses the importance of adoption by the EU of high quality international accounting standards, as well as their recognition by other jurisdictions; emphasises that clearing and settlement, improving the legal framework for retail payments, reducing obstacles to electronic financial services, the UCITS directive and the integration of upstream market functions in general are areas of particular importance for financial market integration; notes that general consumer protection, private law, competition policy and taxation are ...[+++]key areas for the competent Community and national bodies to consider in relation to financial services aspects; invites the Commission to take full account of the FSC report and where appropriate specify timelines for the initiatives proposed in the report in its further work to develop the EU financial services market after the Financial Services Action Plan; and considers that it is important to continue to improve corporate governance, audit and accounting standards, and the reform of European company law.

This amount covers the use of the financial accounting module by 600 civil servants, the vast majority working in the budget and Financial Control Directorates-General, as well as a few users in the internal and external audit services, for example the Court of Auditors, and in the operational Directorates-General.

The proposal adopted by the Commission is intended: - to define Community rules which will allow effective application of the general principles laid down in the Treaty to the specific ground handling market; - to introduce detailed rules to accompany the principles of liberalization of air transport and of the ancillary activities, by organizing access to the various categories of handling service and granting airlines the right to provide their own services (self-handling); - to make costs more transparent by keeping the accounts and funding for handling activities separate and prohibiting any funding which could distort competition.