Press release - Stability and Growth Pact: update on the fiscal situation of Spain and Portugal

12. Notes from the Agency that it introduced a procurement procedure mitigating possible conflicts of interest and the internal audit services (IAS) audited the procedure and made nine recommendations, all of which have been introduced; notes that the IAS considered some of the actions introduced by the Agency to be good practices, in particular, the introduction of an IT application ‘tender contract maker’, developed by the Agency to generate standard documentation for the procurement process; notes that the budget module of the IT application ‘matrix’ used for the Agency project management has been coupled with the accounting records ...[+++] retrieved from accrual-based accounting, allowing a daily online update of the budgetary implementation;

12. Notes from the Agency that it introduced a procurement procedure mitigating possible conflicts of interest and the internal audit services (IAS) audited the procedure and made nine recommendations, all of which have been introduced; notes that the IAS considered some of the actions introduced by the Agency to be good practices, in particular, the introduction of an IT application “tender contract maker”, developed by the Agency to generate standard documentation for the procurement process; notes that the budget module of the IT application “matrix” used for the Agency project management has been coupled with the accounting records ...[+++] retrieved from accrual.based accounting, allowing a daily online update of the budgetary implementation;

· Fiscal and Economic: I have been involved in key decisions to address fiscal consolidation and advised on the level and pace of consolidation, as well as in the development of a national economic and fiscal plan to deal decisively with the crisis situation

2. Takes the view that the funds necessary for the financing of this new cooperation instrument cannot be drawn from lines 19 09 02, 19 10 01 03, 19 10 01 04 and 19 10 01 05, although these budget lines are used for the financing of actions other than Official Development Assistance in countries falling under Regulation (EC) 1905/2006; points out that, as preparatory actions, the actions financed under these budget lines are subject to an annual budgetary decision and not to multiannual financing adopted under codecision;

They also committed themselves to the very strict control of budgetary development in 2002 and to avoid any measure that could worsen the budget deficit and, naturally, to taking all the steps necessary to return, by 2004 at the latest, to a budgetary position closer to a balance, in the case of Germany, or an actual balance, in the case of Portugal.