Monday, 26 February 2018
Address of the President Xhaferi at the Interparliamentary Conference “The Power of the Purse: EP Budgetary Powers and Procedures”
Ladies and gentlemen,
Distinguished colleagues,
Your Excellences,
It is my sincere please to greet this distinguished plenum and to welcome you in our Legislative House, as a President of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia. We are honored to host the Interparliamentrary Confenrence of the Members of the EU Member and Candidate States’ Parliaments, including a significant number of Members of the European Parliament. The Conference has a challenging title: “Power of the Purse: EP Budgetary Powers and Procedures”, where our colleagues, MEPs shall present the procedures and the authorizations in the oversight of the budget of EU.
During the recent Conference in Wilton Park, where “Building an Efficient and Independent Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia” was debated, we paid particular attention to the oversight, in other words scrutiny role of the Assembly in public spending, i.e. the Budget.
I believe that we will all agree that without efficient control of the Parliament over the Budget or the state wallet, we cannot speak of true parliamentary democracy, i.e. oversight of the executive branch. Essentially, without efficient control of the budget, the executive branch overpowers the two governances and alienates itself from the society and the citizens. This creates many preconditions for corruption. And corruption benefits only few political and business elites, while the negative consequences impact the citizens in all areas of their social life.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Republic of Macedonia, from normative point of view, considering the laws in this area, as well as the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly and the provisions in regard with Parliamentary oversight, we are not that bad. Namely, there are many mechanisms and forms to implement all this. I shall mention the role of the Committee on Financing and Budget in the process of adoption of Budget and the Rebalance of the Budget. This does not finalize the role of the aforementioned Committee. Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, the Committee can control the Budget through other mechanisms, including the inflow in the state treasury, as well as the manner of spending finances in various areas,
Furthermore, the Assembly controls the Budget in the process of review and adoption of the Final Account of the Budget, which the Government is obliged to submit to the Assembly each year by 30 June. The control is possible via the Institute MPs’ Questions, the review of the Annual Report of the State Audit Office, as well as via the scrutiny debates. The open issue remains – how efficiently, we as Assembly, use these procedural and legal possibilities, during the inflow and the spending of the citizens’ money.
If we are self-critical, we shall admit that when referring to the oversight role of the Assembly over the executive branch, especially the spending of the Budget allocations; we are legging behind the general practice of the highly developed democratic states. Let us not forget that the citizens fill the Budget as taxpayer, as consumer and as entrepreneurs. Let us not forget that the legitimacy given to us by the voters gives us the seats in the Plenary Hall and we are obliged on their behalf to execute oversight of the public spending and inform the public in a transparent manner. Hence, the oversight role of the Assembly on the budget spending and generally, of the executive branch should not be comprehended as benchmark from Brussels, but as one of the fundamental principles of the democracy in a legal state, if you will a civilization value. I am convinced that at this Conference, we shall hear and learn something new, such as the “Specialized Budget Offices”, but also, we will find out how to apply all this in the further strengthening of the democratic and parliamentary capacities of the Assembly, thus directly in the democratic processes of the society and the state.
Thank you.