26 Amendments of Dominique BILDE related to 2023/2129(DEC)
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Is alarmed about the rising number of crises worldwide and the highest-ever humanitarian funding gap; is worried that Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) - Global Europe (GE) is stretched to its limits and is not sufficient to address existingthat the amounts currently deployed do not effectively meet established needs;
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Stresses the need to improve the effectiveness of EU development aid and humanitarian aid;
Amendment 12 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that 2022 was the first full year of the implementation of the Global Gateway strategy; underlines that actions bringing together public and private investment must always be guided by development objectives and meet the specific needs of the countries concerned, in particular as regards infrastructure and energy; calls for more transparency and Parliament’s involvement in strategic choices involving Union funds; insists that Global Gateway should not only align with the EU interests but also with the needs of partner countries, for example in terms of energy and infrastructure, and contribute to the achievement of the SDGs;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Underlines the need to speed up progress on achieving the NDICI-GE spending targets for human development, gender and climate objectives, but also on migration, in particular in the fight against irregular migration; is worried, in particular, about the Commission’s capacity to ensure reaching the Instrument’s climate target and calls for concrete actions outlining how the climate target is going to be met;
Amendment 17 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Takes note of the enhanced provisions of the Samoa Agreement on migration and stresses that EU development cooperation must be conditional on the beneficiary country’s cooperation on migration, in particular as regards returns and readmissions;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Appreciates the role of local NGOs and partners in service delivery; underlines the importance of enhancing their capacity to manage and implement actions financed by the EU and invites the Commission to facilitate adequate training towards this aim; is concerned about the continued difficulties faced by small local NGOs to access Union funding, but stresses that access to Union funding for small local NGOs must not entail an easing of transparency requirements;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Stresses that NGOs receiving Union funding must adhere to the Union’s values, for example in the area of gender equality, and is concerned about possible direct or indirect funding or support by the Union for organisations advocating a strict form of Islam or which disseminate such thinking, for example in education;
Amendment 27 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Expresses its disappointment at the Commission’s continuing lack of transparency with regard to the agreements it has concluded with the pharmaceutical companies that produce COVID-19 vaccines, as well as at the communications via text message between the President of the Commission and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company;
Amendment 28 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Stresses the important role of the official development assistance (ODA), but also the persistent challenges in improving its effectiveness; calls for a cautious approach to blending and public- private partnerships in fields, such as education or health, while emphasising the potential of such blending for diversifying sources of development funding;
Amendment 29 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Calls for increased mobilisation of sources of development funding other than ODA alone, such as partnerships with the private sector and direct transfers (remittances), and stresses that the circle of state donors of ODA should also be widened;
Amendment 32 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 b (new)
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5b. Stresses, however, the importance of public-private partnerships in education, including for the purposes of vocational training, particularly in Africa, in order to enhance the labour market integration and employability of young people;
Amendment 58 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. In this respect, expresses regret at the Commission’s lack of transparency as regards the organisations – in particular non-governmental organisations – to which it gives funds to the tune of several billion per year, without any conditions in place or any ex-ante or ex-post checks being carried out on the entities concerned, on their status or on their links with terrorist organisations;
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 c (new)
Paragraph 11 c (new)
11c. Deplores the tardy, crude and incomplete nature of the information that the Commission provides on the financial transparency system;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 b (new)
Paragraph 11 b (new)
11b. Points out that the Qatargate scandal exposed civil society organisations as catalysts for corruption; regrets the fact that NGOs and civil society organisations are still exempt from most anti-money-laundering transparency and reporting obligations; emphasises that European Court of Auditors Special report No 35/2018 warns that NGOs are prone to be used for money laundering purposes; calls, therefore, for a definition of NGOs to be established at EU level and for NGOs to be brought within the scope of EU action to combat money laundering;
Amendment 68 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Notes that the Court estimates the level of error for the 2022 expenditure to be 4,2 % (3 % in 2021), which is above the materiality threshold; notes the Commission’s confidence that the risk at payment is estimated at 1.9 % for 2022 (similar to 2020, 2021 and 2022), is representative of the level of error at the time of payment; notes that the Commission’s estimate of error is chronically below the ECA range, meaning that the Commission almost intentionally lowers the error rate in its annuals reports; notes that the Commission’s estimation of the risk at closure, after ex-post controls and corrections have been applied, is 0.9 %; notes the divergence between the Court’s overall error rate and the Commission’s risk at payment, which is observed for the overall Union budget expenditure in 2022, although not in all expenditure areas;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. NotesIs concerned that the Court estimates the level of error for the 2022 expenditure to be 4,.2 % (3 % in 2021), which is above the materiality threshold; notes the Commission’s confidence that the risk at payment is estimated at 1.9 % for 2022 (similar to 2020, 2021 and 2022), is representative of the level of error at the time of payment; notes that the Commission’s estimation of the risk at closure, after ex-post controls and corrections have been applied, is 0.9 %; notes the divergence between the Court’s overall error rate and the Commission’s risk at payment, which is observed for the overall Union budget expenditure in 2022, although not in all expenditure areas;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 a (new)
Paragraph 31 a (new)
31 a. Reminds that once the NGEU borrowing will be entirely accomplished, the size of the EU debt stock of all borrowing programmes will be no less than 1.7 trillion EUR with €750 billion for NGEU, €100 billion for SURE, €50 billion outstanding from before and from new MFA arrangements, EFSF, EIB, ESM and adding inflation;
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 – point i a (new)
Paragraph 36 – point i a (new)
(i a) clearly separate the role of Chief Risk Officer and of Deputy Director- General of DG BUDG in terms of NGEU risk management otherwise it may affect the effectiveness of their oversight of risk (ECA Special report 16/2023: NGEU debt management at the Commission: An encouraging start, but further alignment with best practice needed);
Amendment 110 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 – point i b (new)
Paragraph 36 – point i b (new)
(i b) formulate clear debt management objectives and report on performance in their implementation (ECA Special report 16/2023: NGEU debt management at the Commission: An encouraging start, but further alignment with best practice needed);
Amendment 127 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 46
Paragraph 46
46. Notes from the Annual Report on the Protection of the Union financial interests (PIF Report) that in 2022, the number of fraudulent irregularities relating to TOR (454) fell by 6,.8 % and non- fraudulent irregularities (4 207) rose by 9,.4 % compared to the 5-year average for 2018-2022; notes that most fraudulent cases reported in 2022 relate to incorrect value and incorrect classification or misdescription of goods, while smuggling remains one of the primary modus operandi; notes that most fraudulent cases are detected by inspections by national anti-fraud services together with customs release controls; notes that the recovery rate is currently 48 %, although it can be expected that it will go up in the future due to the length of the process; points out that grants awarded to NGOs from the EU budget amounted to at least EUR 3.7 billion in 2022, making the EU one of the largest financial backers of civil society organisations; is concerned about fraud cases and irregularities in situations where EU-funded NGOs are at risk of conflicts of interest, double funding, corruption or money laundering; is concerned about the lack of publicly available data on the fraud cases involving NGOs;
Amendment 148 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 69
Paragraph 69
69. Takes note that the absorption rate for cohesion policy funds under the programming period 2014-2020 reached 79,2 % at the end of 2022 (86 % at the end of 2023, including newly added Recovery assistance for cohesion and the territories of Europe (REACT-EU) in 2021-2022), having a similar level at the same point in time as in the period 2007-2013; reminds that REACT-EU showed an absorption rate of only 45.5% at the end of August 2023; notes that the 2014-2020 programmes account for over 1 million projects and that so far, they have supported 2,4 million businesses, created 370 000 new jobs, increased the energy performance of more than 540 000 households, created 6 000 megawatts of new renewable energy sources and that 6,3 million households benefited from broadband;
Amendment 224 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 113 – subparagraph 1 (new)
Paragraph 113 – subparagraph 1 (new)
calls for an end to the funding of NGOs undertaking search and rescue operations, which contribute to illegal immigration towards European countries and facilitate people-smuggling; stresses the importance of providing adequate funding to build physical barriers along the European Union’s external borders in order to prevent migrants from entering illegally; furthermore, asks the Commission to actively help Member States relocate the entire asylum procedure and to give them the means to do so;
Amendment 225 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 113 a (new)
Paragraph 113 a (new)
113 a. Highlights that 331 553 illegal border crossings into the EU were registered in 2022, confirming the raise of 66% comparing to the year of 2021;
Amendment 232 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 118 – subparagraph 1 (new)
Paragraph 118 – subparagraph 1 (new)
stresses that any development aid granted to third countries is strictly conditional upon the effective implementation of return and readmission agreements;
Amendment 238 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 125
Paragraph 125
125. Welcomes the implementation by the Commission of several mechanisms to mitigate risks and safeguard the proper use of Union funds spent in unstable or conflict zones; notes that the Commission systematically assesses corruption risks in partner countries and uses an array of tools to mitigate them, at the same time applies conditions and pexpresses its shock at the documented revelations concerning EU funding going to Hamas and more specifically to the University of Gaza, particularly in the light of recent events, and calls for this to end immediately and for EU funding to be transparent and accountable; noting that the European Union is one of the largest donors to UNRWA, which has recently been the subject of numerous allegations regarding the involvement of UNRWA staff in the terfrormance indicators to promote fiscal transparency and accountability through its budget support; welcomes the fact that, according to World Bank data, countries benefiting from Union budget support have improved in the control of corruption over timeist attacks in Israel of 7 October 2023; following the call for transparency and decisive action by Commission, and the example of many Member States, calls for the suspension of EU funding to UNRWA; regrets the fact that the Commission is failing to assess corruption risks in partner countries properly and does not use an array of tools to mitigate those risks, and also regrets the fact that, as part of its budget support, the Commission does not apply real conditions and performance indicators to promote fiscal transparency and accountability;
Amendment 239 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 125
Paragraph 125
125. Welcomes the implementation by the Commission of several mechanisms to mitigate risks and safeguard the proper use of Union funds spent in unstable or conflict zones; notes that the Commission systematically assesses corruption risks in partner countries and uses an array of tools to mitigate them, at the same time applies conditions and performance indicators to promote fiscal transparency and accountability through its budget support; reminds that legal provisions leave broad scope for interpretation and therefore the Commission has considerable flexibility in deciding whether these general conditions have been met; highlights that the ECA's regularity audit cannot cover what happens beyond the moment the Commission pays budget support to the recipient country, since these funds then merge with that country’s own budget resources; welcomes the fact that, according to World Bank data, countries benefiting from Union budget support have improved in the control of corruption over time;