14 Amendments of Petri SARVAMAA related to 2016/2097(INI)
Amendment 23 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H a (new)
Recital H a (new)
Ha. whereas fraud is an example of purposeful wrongdoing and is a criminal offence, and that an irregularity is a failure to comply with a rule;
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H b (new)
Recital H b (new)
Hb. whereas fluctuation in number of irregularities can be linked to the progression of the multiannual programming cycles (with higher levels of detection at the end of cycles due to the closure of programmes) as well as to late reporting by certain Member States which tend to report most of the irregularities of previous multiannual programmes at once;
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Is alarmedNotes that the number of all fraudulent and non-fraudulent irregularities reported (22 349 cases)in 2015 increased significantly for a second consecutive year – first by 48 % in 2014 and then by another 36% in 2015, leading to doubling the amount of registered irregularities within just two yearby 36% amounting to 22 349 cases; notes that even though the number of irregularities doublconsiderably increased, the sum involved in them (EUR 3.21 billion) remains on the same level as in 2014; calls on the Commission to analyse this development;
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Is concerned that despite the positive drop of 11% of fraudulent irregularities from 1,649 in 2014 to 1,461 in 2015, the sums involved increased 18% from 538 million EUR in 2014 to 637.6 million EUR in 2015; notes that false or falsified documents and declarations constituted the most common types of fraud amounting to 34%, while the largest proportion of irregularities reported as fraudulent (52 %) was detected in the agricultural sector, and the highest percentage of detection of all fraudulent irregularities (75%) was made by the administrative control systems provided for by sector-specific regulations;
Amendment 38 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Welcomes the Commission package of four delegated and four implementing regulations on the reporting of irregularity provisions in the area of shared management which aims to improve the quality and consistency of the information on irregularities and fraud reported by the Member States; regrets that those regulations do not regulate timelines in which Members States would be obliged to report the irregularities; deplores the fact that in 2015, 537 out of 538 irregularities reported by Ireland were related to the historic reporting program from 2000- 2006 and 5105 out of 5619 irregularities reported by Spain related to irregularities from the cohesion policy sector detected throughout the whole period 2007-2013 and which were all reported together in 2015; stresses that late reporting impairs accurate assessment of fraudulent and non-fraudulent irregularities in the Member States;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Welcomes the adoption of Regulation (EU) 2015/1525 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 2015 which has improved the current framework for detecting and investigating customs fraud at EU and national level;
Amendment 56 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8a. Notes that customs controls carried out at the time of clearance of goods and inspections by anti-fraud services were the most successful methods of detecting fraudulent cases in the revenue sector in 2015;
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 b (new)
Paragraph 8 b (new)
8b. Expresses deep concern that a decrease in customs staff can negatively influence the number of controls and therefore have a negative impact on the detection of fraudulent actions in the revenue sector of the EU;
Amendment 77 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Takes positive note of the successful outcomes of numerous joint customs operations (JCOs) involving the cooperation of OLAF and Member States with various third-country services, which have resulted in the seizure of, inter alia, 16 million sticks of cigarettes and 2 tonnes of cannabis; notes that operation Baltica, led by Polish customs authorities in cooperation with OLAF, Europol and five Member States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden), seized 13 million sticks of cigarettes coming from third countries such as Belarus and Russia;
Amendment 85 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. DeploresIs deeply concerned that the amount of irregularities reported in the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and in the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) is growing annually for at least 5 consecutive years with the amount of reported cases growing up from 1970 cases in 2011 to 4612 cases in 2015 with the sums involved growing from EUR 119 million in 2012 to EUR 394 million in 2015 with the level of reported irregularities of the EAFRD coming close to 2% of the entire fund; urges the Member States with the highest amount of irregularities reported – Romania, Italy, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Portugal and Lithuania – to do their utmost in order to regulate the situationurgently and efficiently regulate the situation in order to reverse this trend;
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
27. Supports the Commission in its approach to recommend strengthening the work of the Member States, which continue to report a very low number of fraudulent irregularities, in relation to detecting and/or reporting fraud (Austria, Belgium, France, Lithuania, Malta, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom), in particular, those which have not reported any case over the last five years: Slovakia and Finland in the area of agriculture and Denmark and Luxembourg in the area of cohesion policy;
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 a (new)
Paragraph 32 a (new)
32a. Welcomes the fact that Directive 2014/62/EU came into force in 2014 ordering that acts intentionally committed i.e. counterfeiting or altering money, putting them into circulation but also abetting, aiding and attempting to do so are considered as a crime; deplores the fact that Belgium, France and Ireland did not yet transpose the Directive within the prescribed period, i.e. until 23rd May 2016;
Amendment 150 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 a (new)
Paragraph 36 a (new)
36a. Urges the Commission to publish the second anti-corruption report and present these reports regularly to inform the public about the achievements in the fight against corruption, inter alia in the context of the Anti-corruption Sharing Program;
Amendment 189 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 41 b (new)
Paragraph 41 b (new)
41b. Deplores the fact that judicial authorities of some of Member States consider OLAF's recommendations related to the misspending of EU money as a low priority; recalls that according to Art. 325 (2) TFEU Member States shall take the same measures to counter fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union as they take to counter fraud affecting their own financial interests;