[ParlTrack]

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128

128. Is of the opinion that there are substantial differences between the European Social Fund (ESF) grants and the European Progress Microfinance Facility (EPMF) financial instruments, which tend to serve different purposes; considers that ~~these particular characteristics impact on audit performance and can misrepresent the result~~different support mechanisms may be appropriate for different market conditions;

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

Petri SARVAMAA, Martina DLABAJOVÁ

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 129

129. ~~Regret~~Notes that the Court in this audit compares two dissimilar financial ~~instrument~~mechanisms that have different approaches and objectives; stresses that ESF and EPMF differ in many aspects, namely structure, rules and target groups, with the latter being exclusively devoted to micro- financing whereas the former covers a much broader range of aspects;

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

Petri SARVAMAA, Martina DLABAJOVÁ

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 132

132. Is concerned that the Court has privileged considerations of compliance in carrying out this particular audit; finds that the Court could have reached different conclusions if the elements addressed in the report had been assessed on the basis of the Europe 2020 objectives;deleted

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

Martina DLABAJOVÁ

Motion for a resolution
New subheading after paragraph 246

Part XXII – Special Report No 20/2015 of the Court of Auditors entitled "The cost- effectiveness of EU Rural Development support for non-productive investments in agriculture"

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

Martina DLABAJOVÁ

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 246 a (new)

246a. 247. The Commission encourages Member States to implement NPIs more in synergy with other rural development measures and/ or environmental schemes and that the Commission monitors relevant Member States' implementation through their annual implementation reports from 2017; 248. The Commission provides guidance to Member States on NPIs selection criteria for 2014-2020 period and checks that they apply appropriate procedures for the selection of projects; in this context recommends that Member States ensure that the NPIs selection procedures are transparent, made public and effectively implemented, and that they verify effectively the compliance with these criteria; 249. The Commission ensures that the contribution of NPIs to achieving the EU agri-environment objectives is monitored, or at least specifically assessed during the evaluations of the 2014-20 programming period; 250. The Commission encourages and assists those member States where NPI support is significant to define specific result indicators for the NPIs most frequently funded in order to ensure better monitoring and assessment of the NPIs contribution to achieving the EU agri-environmental objectives; in this regard, Member States should report on these indicators in their annual implementation reports starting from June 2016 and include the assessment of the results of NPIs in their evaluation plans; 251. The Commission provides further guidance on the definition of criteria which determine the remunerative characteristics of NPIs benefiting from the highest aid rates and that Member States establish such criteria without any delay and use them to modulate the intensity of support; 252. Member States implement, without delay, procedures to ensure that the costs of the supported NPIs do not exceed the costs of similar types of goods, service or works offered by the market; in this regard Member States should define appropriate benchmarks and/or reference costs against which the costs of NPIs are systematically verified as part of their administrative checks; 253. The Commission uses the information provided by the Member States regarding the controllability and verifiability of the measures for the approval of their RDPs for 2014-2020 to ensure that Member States define and implement adequate procedures regarding the reasonableness of costs, and to verify Member States' effective application of the controls foreseen in this regard; recommends also that the Commission facilitates exchange of good practices between Member States concerning establishment of procedures for cost- reasonableness checks; 254. Member States define, before the first on-the-spot controls for the 2014-20 period are performed, a method for the timely consolidation and analysis of the cause of the errors found during these controls, and to undertake necessary measures for improvement of their management and control systems of the NPIs schemes; 255. The Commission takes into consideration the weaknesses identified by the Court in the area of NPIs expenditures and takes relevant measures together with Member States to ensure proper financial management for these kind of investments;

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

Martina DLABAJOVÁ

Motion for a resolution
New subheading after paragraph 246

Part XXIII – Special Report No 22/2015 of the Court of Auditors entitled "EU supervision of credit rating agencies - well established but not yet fully effective"

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

Martina DLABAJOVÁ

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 246 b (new)

246b. 256. Stresses that the objective of the CRAR is to introduce "(...) a common regulatory approach in order to enhance the integrity, transparency, responsibility, good governance and independence of credit rating activities, contributing to the quality of credit ratings issued in the Union and to the smooth functioning of the internal market, while achieving a high level of consumer and investor protection." (Article 1 of the CRAR); 257. Recognises that the ECA and EMA agreed on many aspects of the audit and recommendations; 258. Welcomes that the ESMA laid down good foundations for effective supervision of the CRAs in the EU in a short period of time; notes however the ECA considers the procedure to be cumbersome, due to the split into completeness and compliance phases as required by the regulation; 259. Shares the Court's opinion that during the registration process, ESMA should adequately document its assessment of all the regulatory requirements regarding the credit rating methodologies, evidence of the approval process should not only be stored in internal correspondence but in dedicated case files; 260. Welcomes that ECA and ESMA agree on ESMA's risk-based approach; the risk identification process should be transparent, comprehensible and traceable; 261. Is of the opinion that all investigations should be properly documented so as to demonstrate and ensure that all conclusions are supported by adequate analyses of the evidence; notes that too this end the Court recommends to put in place a dedicated supervisory IT tool; notes ESM's argument that its current monitoring tools have been effective; however, remains convinced that a dedicated IT tool would be the best way to manage information in transparent, comprehensible, traceable manner bearing in mind normal rates of staff turn-overs; therefore asks ESMA to foresee the introduction of such an IT tool in its budgetary planning; 262. Recalls that one of the purposes and responsibilities of the CRAR is to ensure independence and to avoid conflicts of interests (see annex 1 of the CRAR); believes therefore that CRAs also verify rating analysts' trading activities; nevertheless ESMA should supervise, in a structured manner, the systems put in place by the CRAs for dealing with conflicts of interest; 263. Points to the provisions of Article 23 of the CRAR which stipulates: "In carrying out their duties under this Regulation, ESMA, the Commission or any public authorities of a Member State shall not interfere with the content of credit ratings or methodologies."; the implementation of CRAs' methodologies can therefore only be monitored, once the registration was completed, by on-going supervisory procedures; 264. Agrees that ESMA should examine all important aspects of the design and implementation of CRA methodologies which have not yet been covered; is concerned that this task cannot be fully performed due to a lack of resources; 265. Regrets that the current system does not guarantee an effective protection of the markets in the event of a leak and calls ESMA to improve its control system to prevent and counter those actions that can lead distortions in the markets; 266. Regrets that the current rules of the Eurosystem do not guarantee that all ESMA-registered CRAs are on an equal footing; calls in the European Central Bank and the European legislator to remedy the situation as soon as possible; 267. Understands that the central repository will be integrated in the European rating platform (Article 11 a CRAR) created in 2013 and for which the work is on-going; ask ESMA to ensure the soundness of data reported by CRAs; 268. Calls on ESMA to further improve and harmonise disclosure practices across the CARs; 269. Welcomes EMAS' intention to further improve its website and publish, in particular, all applicable legislation and relevant documents and make the website more user-friendly; 270. Notes that some terminology used in the CRAR (i.e. methodology) may leave room for interpretation and could therefore have a negative bearing on the implementation of the regulation; calls therefore on ESMA and the ECA to transmit to the Commission and the legislator a list legislative provisions which could benefit from further clarification;

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

Martina DLABAJOVÁ

Motion for a resolution
New subheading after paragraph 246

Part XXIV – Special Report No 2/2016 of the Court of Auditors entitled "2014 report on the follow-up of the European Court of Auditors' Special Reports"

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

Martina DLABAJOVÁ

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 246 c (new)

246c. 271. Salutes the fact that 23 of 44 recommendations were fully implemented; 272. Welcomes also that the Commission, by and large, accepted the Courts additional recommendations in the current special report; 273. Notes however that the Court considered that 18 of 44 recommendations, listed in the annex of the working document, partially or not implemented or could not be verified; (a) in the agricultural policy area (10 recommendations) follow-up of recommendations often concerned the Commission and Member States and the former was of the opinion that it had fulfilled its responsibility; (b) in the social policy area (2 recommendations), coming under shared management, the Court considered that performance and effectiveness were not measured sufficiently; (c) in the area of external relations (3 recommendations) the Commission should directly assess the reasonableness of projects costs and rely less on the market knowledge of international organisations; the Commission should have upgraded the quality and security of the Common External Relation Information System (CRIS); and (d) in the area of competition (3 recommendations) the Court is of the opinion that preliminary investigations should be better managed, the number of unfounded complaints reduced and to improve the State Aid Reporting Interface (SARI). 274. Stresses that from the point of view of the discharge authority it is unsatisfactory when adversarial procedures end in: the Commission and the Court conclude differently; calls therefore on both institution to avoid such an outcome; 275. Calls on the Court to clearly indicate in its recommendations which kind of action is expected from the Commission and which kind of action is expected from the Member States; 276. Calls on the Court to develop a system, together with national audit authorities, which will allow the ECA to evaluate the follow-up Member States have given to its recommendations; 277. Emphasises that it never received a satisfactory explanation why the Commission considered it over years very important that directorates general dispose of their own internal audit capabilities, only to regroup the internal audit capabilities under the Internal Audit Service again as of April 2015.

2016/03/04
Committee: CONT

9 Amendments of Martina DLABAJOVÁ related to 2015/2206(DEC)

ParlTrack - 2011-2024