This morning I hosted a meeting of the Committee’s Directorate for Finance, Budget and Accounts and I invited along our Vice-President with responsibility for budgetary affairs, Jacek Krawczyk. The Directorate was gradually created after the Committee’s December 2008 Bureau decision to re-group all financial responsibilities under a single director and I felt it was time to have a meeting with them all to see how things are going but also to let them know that, even for those colleagues whose work is not so politically visible (our verifiers and accountant, for example), their work and conscientiousness are much appreciated. Each year the Secretary General has to sign off the accounts and each year those accounts are then audited by the Court of Auditors. It is thanks to these colleagues that I can happily sign off the accounts, safe in the knowledge that the Court never finds very much wrong with our financial management. Basically, thanks in no small part to these colleagues, we run a tight ship.