[ParlTrack]

Proposal for a decision 1
Paragraph 1

1. Grants the Commission ~~discharge/Postpones its decision on granting the Commission~~ discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2012;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Heading 1

~~Agricultural and regional policy, subject to political approval~~deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Heading 1- Subheading 1

LTakes note of the letter of 5 November 2013 from the rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs to the President of the Commission, in which:

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3

3. Notes that, according to the Communication from the Commission on Protection of the European Union budget1, eight Member States are responsible for 90% of the financial corrections in the fields under shared management; __________________ 1deleted COM(2013) 682, 26 September 2013.

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4

4. ~~Recall~~Notes that in the 2012 financial year the rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs for the discharge to the Commission called for more stringent financial corrections to be imposed on those Member States whose ~~audit~~management and monitoring systems display persistent and systematic weaknesses;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8

8. ~~Stresses that~~Urges the Commission to continue to focus on the application of net financial corrections in the field of agriculture does not yet constitute the anticipated progress, as (a) the Commission’s existing internal rules already stipulate that the duration of conformity procedures must not exceed two yearsas laid down in the internal rules relating to agriculture and ~~(b)~~in the so-called ‘new’ criteria and methodology for applying financial corrections mentioned in Annex I to the Communication refer explicitly to guidelines that will be based on the existing ones adopted by the Commission as long ago as 23 December 1997new rules for cohesion policy for the 2014-2020 period;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9

9. Notes that it depends on many factors whether the new instrument will lead to more net corrections and hence to a lower error rate in cohesion policy; considers it problematic, moreover, that there are ways in which Member States can avoid net financial corrections (no limit on the replacement of projects until 15 February of year ‘n+1’, no time limit on notification by Member States of their own past errors, protracted objection procedures);deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11

11. Notes furthermore that the audit reports of the Member States, on which the Commission’s risk analysis is based, are themselves often faulty and therefore unreliable; notes furthermore that the Court of Auditors only recently confirmed that ‘(…) the European Commission cannot unquestioningly rely on the results of audits performed by the Member States in relation to EU regional funding appropriations’2; __________________ 2 Press release ECA/13/47 of the Court of Auditors on Special Report 16/2013 on the ‘single audit’, 18 December 2013.deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Heading 1 - Subheading 4

~~Grounds for the political reservation. . .~~deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13

13. ~~Observe~~Regrets that in the 2012 financial year the error rate rose for the third time in succession, partly owing to a change in the methodology used;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14

14. ~~Is not prepared to accept the situation that for years~~Emphasises that the majority of the errors identified by the Court ought to be have been identified by the Member States themselves; considers, therefore, that in some Member States the audit results and procedures constitute an inadequate basis for assessments and financial corrections by the Commission;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15

15. Observes that the error rate in the field of rural development is 7.9 %; iexpresses concern~~ed th~~ at the ~~Commission does not anticip~~quality of audits in some Member States an~~y improvement in the situation before 2014, although an action plan was adopted in~~d that the comprehensive action plan drawn up by the Commission will be unable to make any significant impact on the residual error rate until at least the end of 20123;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17

17. Points out with concern that, in particular ~~that~~, despite decisions on flat-rate corrections, the errors detected in 2006 in France and Portugal were still not fully remedied in 2012; stresses that from 2006 to 2013 direct payments were made whose legality and regularity were not fully guaranteed and highlights that European tax-payers’ money has been paid to final beneficiaries without a legal basis and without being recovered;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33

~~33. Regards the newly~~ delected ~~Parliament as being in a position to investigate the reservations in the fields of agriculture and regional policy and lift them if appropriate progress is made;~~

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 58

58. Notes that the 2012 accounts record a EUR 1.8 billion financial correction on the 2000-2006 use of cohesion policy funds in Spain, which corresponds to 49 % of the total corrections in 2012; ~~regret~~welcomes and accepts the explanations offered by the Spanish authorities to the Committee on Budgetary Control in respect of this correction and recalls that, in accordance with current rules, the authorities in Spain weare entitled to further funding amounting to EUR 1 390 million;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 104

104. States with deep concern that the Court found systemic deficiencies in the LPIS audited in Italy and Spain in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and that since 2007 deficiencies were found in the LPIS of 12 Member States1; notes the reply by the Commission and the Spanish authorities to the effect that, despite the limited extent of the deficiencies, an error correction system is being applied, involving the incorporation of an eligibility coefficient into regulation of the next period; __________________ 1 Lithuania, Slovakia, Cyprus, Malta, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, France, Greece, Portugal, Austria, Sweden (see the annual reports of the ECA since 2007).

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 115

115. Notes with concern that the weaknesses detected in 2012 in the above- mentioned Member States were ~~very~~ similar to those found and reported in the six different Member States which were audited in 2011 ~~(Denmark, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Austria and Finland)~~;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 136

136. For this reason, reserves its position as regards the regularity of transactions and the effectiveness of systems in the common agricultural policy (direct payments and rural development); will lift this reservation only on the basis of a commitment to fully protect the budget of the European Union given by the relevant Commissioners-designate during the parliamentary hearing preceding their appointment as Members of the Commission in 2014 and on condition that convincing plans for doing so are presented;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151

151. Stresses that, according to statistics from the 2012 activity report of DG REGIO, risk-affected payments ranged between EUR 755.8 million (minimum) and 1 706.8 million (maximum); observes that, in this context, the Commission expressed 61 reservations for programmes or parts thereof and 25 reputation reservations, primarily concerning Spain, Sweden, European territorial cooperation and the Czech Republic; impresses on the Commission that it needs to continue to pursue the greatest possible simplification in order to avoid to the maximum any possibility of error;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 157

157. Reserves its final judgment of this policy sector in the light of the above considerations, particularly for the following reasons: (a) it is not clear that the audit authorities of some Member States take their auditing task seriously and that they make lasting improvements to supervisory and control systems; (b) it is not clear that the Commission, on the basis of an independent audit procedure, is performing more audits of final beneficiaries and granting authorities in year ‘n’ in those Member States which have attracted attention because of shortcomings in administrative and audit systems in year ‘n-1’; (c) it is not clear that the Commission itself audits all operational programmes at least once in the course of a programming period; (d) the time limits in adversarial procedures are too long, and (e) it is uncertain whether the operational application of the term ‘serious deficiencies’ will lead to any improvement; calls on the newly elected Parliament to inquire into the weaknesses in regional policy which have been highlighted here during the hearings of the designated members of the new Commission in order to protect the EU budget more effectively;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158

~~158. Regards the newly elected Parliament as being in a position to investigate the reservations in the fields of agriculture and regional policy and lift them if appropriate progress is made;~~deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 171

171. Regrets that the 2012 activity report of DG EMPL contains a reservation relating to EUR 68 million of the payments made for the 2007-2013 programming period, pertaining to 27 out of 117 operational programmes (Spain 9, Italy 4, United Kingdom 3) and insists on the need for simplification;

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 175

175. Calls for a policy to reduce youth unemployment which possesses European added value; regards the role of the EU as being in particular to improve infrastructure for vocational training and further training; calls, in this regard, for an ‘honest’ European subsidy policy which focuses far more on transfers of know-how from Member States with low youth unemployment rates to Member States where those rates are high, but without further arousing false expectations and without further making promises on matters for which the European Union cannot assume primary responsibility;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

Eva ORTIZ VILELLA

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 177

177. Observes that European citizens and tax-payers cannot be shown what has been achieved by making payments amounting to billions from the ESF and Structural Funds to combat youth unemployment; draws attention to the fact that those carrying out labour market measures on the ground dispute the alleged failure to keep statistics on them; reminds the Commission of its accountability for the use of European tax revenue for young unemployed people, and considers the results of European subsidy policies to be inadequate, particularly in relation to the expectations which have been aroused in terms of reducing youth unemployment;deleted

2014/02/27
Committee: CONT

24 Amendments of Eva ORTIZ VILELLA related to 2013/2195(DEC)

ParlTrack - 2011-2024