40 Amendments of Marco ZANNI related to 2015/2154(DEC)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Regrets that no hearing of the Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, took place before the parliamentary Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT);
Amendment 3 #
Proposal for a decision 1
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Grants the Commission discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2014/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 2014;
Amendment 4 #
Proposal for a decision 2
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Grants the Director of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014/Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014;
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Is concerned about the budget cuts in the transport sector that were subsequently made in order to establish the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) and that there continues to be an unequal distribution of funding from a geographical point of view;
Amendment 5 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 b (new)
Paragraph 2 b (new)
2b. Regrets the continuing use of transport funds for major projects that have a significant and detrimental impact on the land that is not commensurate with real benefits for the population, health and the environment and does not take into account the will of the local people;
Amendment 6 #
Proposal for a decision 3
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Grants the Director of the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (formerly the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation) discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014/Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Executive Agency for Small and Medium- sized Enterprises (formerly the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation) discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Stresses that the EU’s economic situation still shows there to be many weaknesses as regards gender equality;
Amendment 8 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Points to the considerable difficulties women experience in accessing credit, which has serious repercussions in terms of their personal and business prospects;
Amendment 9 #
Proposal for a decision 4
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Grants the Director of the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (formerly the Consumers, Health and Food Executive Agency) discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014/Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (formerly the Consumers, Health and Food Executive Agency) discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014;
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 b (new)
Paragraph 2 b (new)
2b. Emphasises that difficulties in accessing credit adversely affect women and serve to widen the gap between their wages and pensions and those of men;
Amendment 10 #
Proposal for a decision 5
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Grants the Director of the European Research Council Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014/Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the European Research Council Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Calls on the Commission to produce an assessment of the impact that EU financing has had on promoting gender equality;
Amendment 13 #
Proposal for a decision 6
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Grants the Director of the Research Executive Agency discharge in relation to the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014/Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Research Executive Agency discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014;
Amendment 13 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Calls on the Commission to make public all its ex ante assessments and to disclose social, health and environmental impacts;
Amendment 15 #
Proposal for a decision 7
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Grants the Director of the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (formerly the Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency) discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014/Postpones its decision on granting the Director of the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (formerly the Trans- European Transport Network Executive Agency) discharge in respect of the implementation of the Agency’s budget for the financial year 2014;
Amendment 16 #
Proposal for a decision 8
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Approves the closure of the accounts of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2014/Postpones the closure of the accounts of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2014;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Calls on all the EU institutions to assess whether there is genuine parity as regards the distribution of posts within the institutions and bodies of the EU, providing gender-by-gender statistics on staff numbers and grades as part of the discharge procedure.
Amendment 25 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Calls on the Commission to make public all the documentation relating to the Lyon-Turin project and to consider submitting a proposal to make it compulsory for all accounting and planning documents concerning major infrastructure work to be published, including documentation on subcontractors;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 b (new)
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5b. Regrets that the Commission has so far denied access to documents relating to projects in the transport sector that have been financed by EU funds;
Amendment 31 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Takes the view that the Commissioner should ensure total transparency in the management of funds, ensuring that the public interest is protected and always, in all circumstances, takes precedent over any private interest;
Amendment 48 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 – point a
Paragraph 18 – point a
(a) Member States are not required to include common indicators in their programmes, with the exception of the Youth Employment Initiative and EAFRD and results-based assessments do not form part of the initial control stage in the Member States;
Amendment 51 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 – point d a (new)
Paragraph 18 – point d a (new)
da) the Commission continues to have limited capacity for performance monitoring and evaluation;
Amendment 76 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43
Paragraph 43
43. Underscores the Court's observation that if the Commission, authorities in the Member States or independent audits had made use of all information available to them, they should have prevented, detected, or corrected a significant proportion of the errors before these were made, and expresses concern at the fact that the Commission has admitted it takes at least ten years to correct errors;
Amendment 92 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 51 a (new)
Paragraph 51 a (new)
51a. Expresses concern at the rate of absorption of funds in Member States, which varies between 50% and 92%; calls on the Commission to present a thorough analysis of why it is some regions still exhibit low rates of absorption and to assess specific ways of remedying the structural problems underlying those imbalances;
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 68
Paragraph 68
68. Recommends that the Commission fit all reporting arrangements into a single coherent system to protect the financial interests of the Union, thereby making the fight against fraud and corruption more effective; recalls the importance of a coherent legislation inside the Union to efficiently fight against organised crime operating at a transnational level; expresses concern at the lack of targeted national legislation on combating organised crime in many northern European countries and calls on the Commission to provide for extending the anti-mafia certification requirement to all procurement procedures involving EU funding;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 68 a (new)
Paragraph 68 a (new)
68a. Points out that transparency is the most effective instrument for combating abuse and fraud; calls on the Commission to improve legislation in this regard, making it compulsory to publish data relating to all the beneficiaries of EU funding, including data on subcontracts;
Amendment 124 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 71 a (new)
Paragraph 71 a (new)
71a. Expresses concern about the data provided by Eurodad on money laundering, in which Luxembourg and Germany rank top for the risk of money laundering; regards it as essential that the Member States should transpose in full the EU directive on money laundering and introduce a public register of the ownership of companies, including trusts;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 85
Paragraph 85
85. Points out that despite the level of payments continuing to be higher than the MFF ceiling, use of the contingency margin unpaid payments claims rose by EUR 1,4 billion to EUR 25,8 billion; Stresses the importance of fully respecting the joint statement on a payment plan 2015-2016 agreed between Parliament, Council and Commission, following the shared commitment to reduce the backlog of outstanding payment claims for the 2007-2013 cohesion programmes to around EUR 2 billion by the end of 2016; takes the view that in de facto terms this state of affairs constitutes a breach of Article 310 TFEU, which states that the revenue and expenditure shown in the budget must be in balance;
Amendment 143 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 95
Paragraph 95
95. Points out that the VAT gap and the estimated losses on VAT collection amounted to EUR 168 billion in 2013; is concerned that the new system of accountability for VAT as an own resource could not totally achieve its goal of simplification and stresses the need to improve EUROFISC to facilitate the exchange of information and help combat irregularities and frauds; notes with concern the fact that the Commission does not have data on VAT fraud and carousel fraud; points out that in 2012 some EUR 177 billion in VAT revenue was lost as a result of breaches of the rules and failures to recover sums due, a sum equal to 16% of the VAT revenue of 26 Member States for that year;
Amendment 148 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 101 – point d a (new)
Paragraph 101 – point d a (new)
da) extend the risk assessment capacity of Eurofisc to cover the VIES system (transnational VAT information exchange system);
Amendment 186 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 142 a (new)
Paragraph 142 a (new)
142a. Expresses concern at the fact that in Italy payments to trainees are not being made or made only subject to unacceptable delays; calls on the Commission to monitor the situation and to draw up a specific action plan for those Member States in which this problem is occurring;
Amendment 194 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 148
Paragraph 148
148. Calls on the Commission to create an effective tool to contribute to the improvement of the reliability of controlling and auditing activities provided by the national authorities; recalls the importance of extending transparency on data regarding the public procurement in order to improve accessibility and controls, by publishing details of contractors and their subcontractors;
Amendment 198 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151
Paragraph 151
151. Is pleased that the Commission published a document entitled "Public Procurement - Guidance for practitioners on the avoidance of the most common errors in projects funded by the European Structural and Investment Funds" in October 2015; criticises, nonetheless, the fact that the main source of expenditure- related errors under the heading 'Economic, social and territorial cohesion' continues to be breaches of the rules on public procurement, which account for almost half the estimated error rate; points out that the serious breaches of the rules on public procurement include the direct award of additional contracts or additional works or services for which no justification is given, the illegal exclusion of bidders, conflicts of interest and discriminatory selection criteria; regards as essential a policy of complete transparency in respect of information concerning contractors and subcontractors, with a view to addressing errors and abuses of the rules;
Amendment 203 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153
Paragraph 153
153. Recalls that the legal framework for ESIFs 2014-2020 has also introduced ex ante conditionalities for the effective and efficient use of Union funds, which cover inter alia Member States’ public procurement systems; and that in that context, actions plans have been adopted for 12 countries and will be assessed by 2016; stresses that fulfilling the ex-ante conditionalities is a precondition for funding; remarks the fundamental role of the ex-ante assessments is to guarantee the better use of resources and asks for the necessary full transparency on the financing of infrastructural projects, including publication of the ex ante and ex post assessments of the economic, environmental and social sustainability of projects;
Amendment 204 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 a (new)
Paragraph 153 a (new)
153a. Calls on the Commission to publish all the documents concerning the project to build the Lyon-Turin high-speed rail line and the funding arrangements for the project;
Amendment 217 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 166 a (new)
Paragraph 166 a (new)
166a. Criticises the fact that, as in previous financial years, the error rate, including as regards some requests for final payment which had been the subject of external audits and checks, highlights the inadequate nature of the ex ante checks in respect of the ESF; stresses that errors involving non-compliance with the rules on public procurement and a lack of documents justifying expenditure account for almost one-third of the estimated error rate;
Amendment 224 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 172 a (new)
Paragraph 172 a (new)
172a. Expresses concern regarding the checks carried out on funds for refugees, which are frequently allocated to the Member States in emergencies and in a manner not consistent with the rules in force; regards it as essential that the Commission should introduce more rigorous checks, not least with a view to ensuring that the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers are upheld;
Amendment 296 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 253
Paragraph 253
253. Points out that the budget support transactions examined by the Court were free from errors of legality and regularity; takes the view, however, that the Commission should introduce consistent monitoring of funds allocated in the form of budget support, including systematic checks on compliance with the conditions governing eligibility for this type of support;
Amendment 297 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 255 a (new)
Paragraph 255 a (new)
255a. Regards it as essential that suspension of pre-accession funding should be possible not only in cases where misuse of funds has been proven, but also in cases where pre-accession countries violate in any way the rights laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
Amendment 302 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 266 a (new)
Paragraph 266 a (new)
266a. Expresses concern at the number of suicides among staff; takes the view that the Commission should carry out a thorough assessment of staff well-being, in an effort to halt the suicides;