Activities of Viola VON CRAMON-TAUBADEL related to 2022/2081(DEC)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2021, Section III – Commission and executive agencies
Amendments (76)
Amendment 19 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Notes with concern the findings of the Court of Auditors (the “Court”) regarding the protection of the Union budget; takes note of the Court’s Special Report 11/2022 “Protecting the EU budget” where the Court found that although the Commission’s exclusion system has some strengths, shortcomings limit its effectiveness; notes with concern that the implementation of the Early Detection and Exclusion System (EDES) has taken longer than planned; is worried that differences in the approaches undermine the overall effectiveness of exclusion; calls on the Commission to work hand in hand with the Parliament on recast of the EU Financial Regulation to further improve the EDES to make it an efficient and effective tool;
Amendment 20 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Stresses the need to enlarge the areas where the EDES is used beyond direct management and requests the Commission to use it for all Union funds including funds under shared management: notes that, the EDES has to be used systematically to ensure that companies and beneficial owners who have been convicted in relation to fraud, corruption or other serious economic criminal activities cannot benefit from Union funds, including a permanent and irreversible exclusion from participating in EU projects or in any way receiving the funds from the EU budget; stresses the need to harmonise the indicators in ARACHNE with the exclusion grounds of EDES to ensure that excluded economic operators are also visible in ARACHNE; calls for maximum interoperability between ARACHNE, EDES and other software to reduce the need to insert information items into various IT systems multiple times and keep the administrative burden as low as possible; believes that not more but better targeted control systems are needed, including the use of new technologies;
Amendment 23 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Reiterates the imperative need of a single mandatory integrated and interoperable information and monitoring system provided by the Commission, allowing for the electronic recording and storage of data on the recipients of Union funding, including their beneficial owners and allowing for the availability of this information for data-mining and risk- scoring purposes; underlines that it is essential to get a clear and provide for a transparent overview of the distribution and potential concentration of Union funds disbursed, including through a functionality that allows for the aggregation of these funds; underlines that this would reduce the bureaucratic burden on the financial actors, on controllers and auditors, as well as on the recipients of Union funds, and should facilitate risk assessment for the purposes of selection, award, financial management, monitoring, investigation, control and audit and would also contribute to effective prevention, detection, correction and follow-up of fraud, corruption, conflicts of interest, double funding and other irregularities;
Amendment 27 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Stresses the increased use and importance of performance indicators, including the selection of indicators, definition of targets and milestones and monitoring and reporting in light of the new delivery models for the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and the reformed Common Agricultural Policy; welcomecalls in this regard on the Commission's work to to further improve monitoring and reporting on performance of the Union budget with more streamlined and qualitative indicators such as indicators on gender mainstreaming and indicators on biodiversity, as reflected in the adopted basic acts of the 2021-2027 spending programmes; notes that milestones and targets as well as output indicators are different in nature; notes that the RRF further differentiates between investments and reforms; stresses that performance auditing is a new tool for the respective audit authorities; reiterates its call on the Commission to provide an overview of the complete audit cycle within the Member States, the Commission as well as an overview of the cooperation with the respective audit authorities including the Court, as well as OLAF and the EPPO;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Is concerned about the increasing number and complexity of the Commission’s quasi-legal instruments such as opinions, recommendations, communications, non-legislative resolutions, notices, guidance documents and statements of administrative priorities; calls on the Commission to simplify and streamline these instruments and use them with an intention to further simplify the procedures and cut the bureaucratic burden and not to the opposite;
Amendment 31 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Reiterates the need to step up the efforts in the fight against fraud both at Union and Member State level, in close cooperation with the EPPO and OLAF; appreciates the remarkable efforts and stresses the role of the EPPO in the investigation and prosecution of fraud and other criminal offences affecting the financial interests of the Union; highlights the importance of the EPPO’s full independence and impartiality for the effective exercise of its functions; recalls the importance of providingstresses the fact theat EPPO and OLAF with’s independence, impartiality and their effectiveness demands sufficient financial and human resources;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. Notes that the Commission presents its annual report on the protection of the EU financial interests (PIF report) in the autumn of the following year making it impossible for the Parliament to adopt the report sooner than 2 years after the concerned period in the report (n+2); stresses that in order to achieve better efficiency in adopting the EU policies and counter-measures to the fraud, tax evasion and other financial irregularities presented in the report, the Parliament should be able to process and adopt the PIF report no later than next year (n+1); calls on OLAF and the Commission to adopt their reporting on PIF accordingly;
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Underlines the increasing need to ensure the transparency of NGOs and of their funding, as they are important actors in the implementation of the Union budget, especially in the area of external action; demands the Commission to re- evaluate its identification of entities as NGOs, improving the reliability of information (making sure to have them registered as lobbyists, having clearly established whether they stand for the topics they claim they represent, and having insight intomportance of transparent operations of NGOs and of their funding; calls on the Commission to further improve the EU Lobby Register, making sure that NGOs who approach EU institutions are registered as lobbyists, set up an effective mechanism to assure NGOs’ activities are aligned with the EU values and demand a full transparency on part of their financing); demands the disclosure of their financing be it private (e.g. NGOs financed by the industrial actors) or public; recalls that as regards public funding, the Union basic acts regulate how transparency and visibility in this regard need to be handled, therefore reminds the Commission about the responsibility it has to check the compliance with rules and procedures, especially rules and procedures on sub- granting to NGOs; moreover, demands that the Commission provides the discharge authority with clear information about the total amount of Union funds implemented by NGOsan overview of total amount of Union’s NGOs related expenditure;
Amendment 50 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Welcomes the RRF's contributionpotential to preventing a strong economic downturn following the COVID-19 pandemic; notes that the RRF has been instrumental in making progress with the implementation of the Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs) stemming from the European Semester in almost all Member States; notes however that several CSRs remain unaddressed, despite the financial incentives stemming from the RRF;
Amendment 55 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Is concerned by the findings of the Court in its first annual assessment of the RRF; considers that the implementation of the RRF takes place under time pressure, with however a much more straight forward delivery model that puts much, lighter requirements on both the Commission, and reduces the control burden from the Commission towards the Member StateMember States, and reduces Commission’s control levels, in particular in comparison with the cohesion policy; is thefinancing, refpore concerned by the types of findings of the Court which fundamentally calls into questionting and control structure of cohesion or agricultural policy; is concerned whether the Commission can handle even this reduced control burden; calls on the Commission not to apply the performance based delivery model as used in the implementation of the RRF forto other EU programs and policies until the advantages and disadvantages are more clear, following the evaluation of the implementation of the RRF by 20 Februin early 2024;
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Welcomes the agreement reached in the inter-institutional negotiations on RePowerEU on the bi-annual publication of the 100 biggest final beneficiaries per Member State on the RRF Scoreboard; reiterates its call for the list of all final beneficiaries in all EU policies and projects to be made available to auditorthe relevant EU institutions and to the discharge authority;
Amendment 59 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Notes the successful efforts of the Commission to raise funds on the financial markets to provide the financial means for the RRF; is concerned by the resulting debts, the rising interest rates and the resulting uncertain capacity to repay the loans and the risk this poses for the Union budget and Union policies; calls on the Commission to mitigate the risk and keep the Parliament fully informed on the annual status of these loans;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Is concerned that the late adoption of a number of regulations governing different Union polices has, similarly as at the beginning of 2014 - 2020 period, implied a significant delay in the starting of implementation for the 2021-2027 period; inviturges the Commission to take all the necessary measures to speed up the implementation of the policies on the ground, while keeping a high focus on quality and the need to step up the fight against fraud and protect the financial interests of the Union; draws attention to the fact that especially under shared management a significant part the 2021 budgetary allocation has to be reprogrammed to the following years; highlights in this context the risk that outstanding commitments bear on the Union budget, possibly generating significant decommitments which in turn would decrease the impact of the Union budget; demands that the Commission indicates to the discharge authority the measures it intends to take to avoid this situation and draws the necessary conclusions and experience to avoid the similar situation from repeating at the start of the 2028 -2034 MFF;
Amendment 72 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Regrets that the Court has again issued an adverse opinion on the legality and regularity of the expenditure side of the EU budget, issued by the Court;
Amendment 73 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Notes the overall error rate calculated by the Court of 3,0 %, which is 1,0 % point above the materiality threshold; notes that this is a deterioration in comparison with 2020, when the error rate was 2,7 %, also well above the materiality threshold; notes the Commission’s reply that it does not dispute the Court’s established error rate, and but at the same time defends the results of its own work resulting in an estimated error rate at payment which is based on a different methodology; notes that the Commission calculates its risk at payment for 2021 as 1.9 %; is worried by the fact that, contrarily to the Court, the Commission estimates its error rate to be both below the materiality threshold and the lowergoes even lower than the bottom range of the estimated level of error of the Court, of 2.2%;
Amendment 75 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30
30. NotAgrees with concern that the Court considersthe Court that the Commission’s risk assessment is likely to underestimate the level of risk in several areas; highlights that the Court has reported weaknesses in the Commission’s ex-post audits in Heading 1 'Single market, innovation and digital', underestimation of errors in Heading 2 'Cohesion, resilience and values', and underestimations of risk and a high number of errors in Heading 6 'Neighbourhood and the world', among other issues; highlights that in ‘Natural Resources and Environment’ both institutions are aligned in their calculations while for examplebut stresses the fact that for ‘Single Market, Innovation and Digital’ the Court estimates a level of error of 4.4 % while the Commission estimates a risk at payment of 1.3 %;
Amendment 78 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
31. ExpressReiterates its support for the audit approach and methodology of the Court; notes with concern the divergences between the error rates and risk at payment as calculated by the Court and the Commission; highlights that these differences can not simply be attributed to a different methodologies used as they do not occur in all expenditure areas; remarks the fact that the Commission’s estimates for risk at payment are consistently in the lower range or below the statistical estimations of the Court and is concerned that this represents a systematic underestimation of the existing error level by the Commission; is worried that the Commission, acting on potentially underestimated risks, is not able to effectively protect the financial interests of the Union; is also concerned by the confusion this creates for the discharge authority and Union citizens, as the Commission on the one hand embraces the Court’s error rate in areas where this is below the materiality threshold (natural resources), however presents its own estimated error at payment in areas where the Court’s error rate is above the materiality threshold;
Amendment 79 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 a (new)
Paragraph 31 a (new)
31a. Is worried that the Commission, acting on potentially underestimated risks, is not able to effectively protect the financial interests of the Union; is also concerned by the confusion this creates for the discharge authority and Union citizens, as the Commission on the one hand embraces the Court’s error rate in areas where this is below the materiality threshold (natural resources), however presents its own estimated error at payment in areas where the Court’s error rate is above the materiality threshold and thus casts a shadow on the reliability of its financial reporting;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
34. Notes that the Court divides their audit population into high risk (mainly reimbursement based payments) and low risk (mainly entitlement based payments) expenditure; notes with concern however, that the Commission in its Annual Management and Performance Report categorises the expenditure into higher, medium and lower risk segments; emphasises that the use of different risk categories by the Court and the Commission impedes the work of the discharge authority in making a comparative analysis of the respective reports; notes with concern the discrepancy between the Court’s calculation of high- risk expenditure as 63.2 % compared to Commission’s calculation of 22 %; highlights that such discrepancies between the Court and the Commission are hampering the reliability of input data needed for the discharge authority;
Amendment 88 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 37
Paragraph 37
37. Notes that, despite the fact that the Court considers the RRF expenditure accepted in the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2021 as legal and regular in all material respects, there is one milestone in the payment to Spain that ihas not been satisfactorily fulfilled, casting doubt on the Commission’s assessment of the milestone and targets associated with the related RRF expenditure; recalls that the only reason the identified error was not quantified was the absence of a methodology for partial payments by the Commission;
Amendment 92 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 38
Paragraph 38
38. Notes with concern that in 2021 the implementation of commitments was very low, at 68 % of the total available amount, and that the late adoption of sectoral regulations during 2021 delayed the launch of new programmes; welcomes that the overall ESIF absorption rate increased in 2021 due to higher payments than in 2020; highlights that at the end of 2021, around EUR 161 billion remained to be absorbed by the closure of ESIF programmes in 2025; noreiterates withs concern theover significant differences in absorption rates by Member States, and the fact that some Member States still have more than 40 % of their committed amounts to absorb; stresses again that huge differences in absorption capacities between Member States in fact present one of the most serious obstacles to more effective development of less developed regions;
Amendment 96 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 39
Paragraph 39
39. NoReiterates withs concern that at the end of 2021, total outstanding commitments reached a record high of EUR 341,6 billion; highlights that outstanding commitments are likely to exceed EUR 460 billion in 2023 but that they will then fall as NGEU draws to a close; despite of the later the discharge authority expresses its utmost concern over the risks that outstanding commitments pose to the normal functioning of the EU budget and its solvency;
Amendment 102 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 42
Paragraph 42
42. Strongly supports the recommendations of the Court in its Annual Report as well as in related special reports; calls on the Commission to implement them without delay and to keep the discharge authority informed on the progress of the implementation;
Amendment 104 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43 – point b
Paragraph 43 – point b
b. simplify rules and procedures, develop compulsory training sessions and practical information for applicants, in particular new applicants, and improve the assistance and guidelines for SMEs and NGOs, spin- offs, start-ups, administration and payment agencies and all other relevant stakeholders without compromising the quality of the controls;
Amendment 105 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43 – point c
Paragraph 43 – point c
c. keep increasing the administrative capacity of the Commission and Member States and propose adequate budget lines for the Court, the EPPO and OLAF to insure their efficiency in relation to the implementation of the new upcoming tasks related to the NGEU instrument in order to protect the Union finances;
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43 – point d
Paragraph 43 – point d
d. summarise and report to the discharge authority and the Court the reasons for the differences in the various expenditure areas and recoveries, and also in the results concerning the estimated level of error as calculated by the Court and the risk at payment as calculated by the Commission in the AMPR and engage in an exchange with the Court on both managerial and technical level with the aim of introducing a single methodology on EU expenditure error rate;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 45
Paragraph 45
45. Regrets that the Court considers that the sources dedicated to the preparation of this performance report hasve a negative impact on its audit andconducting audits on other emerging Union priorities; takes note of the Court’s decision to return to reporting on performance along the lines previously used in chapter 3 of the Annual Report; remarks that due to the legal deadlines in place, the Court may find it difficult to include its assessment of the AMPR in its Annual Report; calls for the Court to nevertheless take account of the AMPRs in their annual reporting or through a separate document if necessary in order to account for the annual discharge exercise; recalls that the staff of the Court has been already increased in 2023 in order to account for the increased workload due to NGEU;
Amendment 114 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 47
Paragraph 47
47. RegretsIs deeply concerned by the fact that the AMPR provides overly positive conclusions on the progress made towards mainstreaming targets, that there is little information available on whether spending contributes meaningfully to multiple priorities at the same time, that the Commission’s performance framework does not yet measure outcomes, and that the Commission’s review of reported information faces challenges;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 48
Paragraph 48
48. WelcomNotes that according to the Commission climate and biodiversity priorities are integrated into the performance framework; but notes with great concern the additional findings of the Court in its Special Report 09/2022 “Climate Spending in the 2014-2020 EU budget”; is worried that reported spending is not always relevant to climate action and that the Union budget contribution to climate and biodiversity is overstated; notes with further concern the Court’s findings that the overall reporting on climate spending was unreliable, since it involved significant approximation and tracked only the potential positive impact on climate without evaluating the final contribution to Union climate goals; notes with concern that the risk that the planned or committed amounts would not be spent, could further inflate reported climate spending; is worried that the Court found that only limited improvements are expected in the 2021- 2027 climate reporting; regrets that the Commission has not yet addressed weaknesses in the reported figures of their new methodology; expresses its profound disappointment about the reaction of the Commission which indicates a lack of responsibility and a failure to fully recognise the shortcomings in its methodology; cannot accept the Commission’s statement about ‘agreeing to disagree’ with Members of the discharge authority given the fact that the amount reported as having been spent on climate action had been overstated by at least EUR 72 billion for the 2014-2020 period according to the Court;
Amendment 117 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 50
Paragraph 50
50. WelcomNotes that progress has been made in incorporating gender equality into the performance framework; notes with great concern that on top numerous discussions of Parliament’s Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality the Court has identified weaknesses in gender mainstreaming; regrets that the Commission’s first estimation of the overall contribution of the Union budget to promoting gender equality was affected by weaknesses; notes with concern that there are Commission continues to implement Union’s programs with no spending targets and only a few indicators for gender equality;
Amendment 118 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 51
Paragraph 51
51. RDeeply regrets that there is only limited information available on the progress of Union programmes towards the SDGs; notes with grave concern that previous work from the Court shows that the Commission does not report on the budget’s contribution to the SDGs; welcomes that the Commission has started reporting on the links between Union spending programmes and the SDGs and awaits newest assessment by the Court on the reliability of Commission’s reporting;
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 52
Paragraph 52
52. Welcomes that the digital transition is a new priority; understands that the Commission has provided information on the contribution to the digital transition for specific programmes and awaits newest assessment by the Court on the reliability of Commission’s reporting on the implementation of this priority;
Amendment 120 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 53
Paragraph 53
53. Strongly supports the recommendations of the Court in its Annual Report as well as in related special reports; calls on the Commission to implement them without delay and to keep the discharge authority informed on the progress of the implementation;
Amendment 121 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 54 – point b
Paragraph 54 – point b
b. follow-up on the Court’s recommendations to better link the Union’s expenditure to its climate, biodiversity, gender mainstreaming and energy objectives;
Amendment 127 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 54 a (new)
Paragraph 54 a (new)
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 65
Paragraph 65
65. Notes withIs deeply concerned that the Court found that the estimated level of error in spending on ‘Single Market, Innovation and Digital’ was material, reaching 4,4 %, compared to 3.9 % in the previous year; is worried that the estimated risk at payment calculated by the Commission is 1.3 %, which is below both materiality and the range of estimated level of error of the Court; notes the Court’s observation that, despite the measures already taken by the Commission, its error rate remains understated;
Amendment 132 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 67
Paragraph 67
67. Notes with concern that the rules for declaring personnel costs under H2020 remain complex, despite simplification efforts, and their calculation remains a major source of error in the cost claims; regrets that one of the main causes of error is the incorrect application of the methodology for calculating personnel costs; draws attention to the Court’s observation that private entities, in particular SMEs and new entrants, are prone to error; urges the Commission to foster and facilitate the application of correct methodology for calculating personnel costs;
Amendment 141 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 74
Paragraph 74
74. Notes withIs deeply concerned that the Court found that the level of error in spending on ‘Cohesion, resilience and values’ was material and for MFF heading 2, of an estimated overall level of error of 3.6 %, compared to 3.5 % in the previous year; notes that spending under subheading 2a has an estimated level of error of 4.1 %; remarks that the Commission reported a combined risk at payment for heading 2 as a whole of between 1.7 % and 2.3 %, while for subheading 2a the Commission estimated the risk of at payment to be between 1.8 % and 2.5 %; draws attention to the difference in the figures between the Commission and the Court;
Amendment 142 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 78
Paragraph 78
78. Notes with concernDeeply regrets that shortcomings remain in the way audit authorities perform and document their work; is worried that the Court found quantifiable errors that had not been previously identified by the national audit authorities in many cases when re- performing their audits;
Amendment 149 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 87
Paragraph 87
87. Takes note that the Court, in its Special Report 14/2022 “The Commission’s response to fraud in the Common Agricultural Policy” found that fraud risks vary between the CAP payment schemes; welcomnotes that the Commission has taken action on fraud spending; regrets that according to the Court, the actions taken by the Commission were not sufficiently proactive; notes with concern that some paying agencies have indicated a need for more practical advice from the Commission;
Amendment 150 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 87 a (new)
Paragraph 87 a (new)
87a. Regrets that the Commission’s actions to detect and counter fraud in the CAP payments does not lead to the substantial eradication of risks and abuses; urges the Commission to systematically assess the use of CAP payments by providing the list of biggest beneficiaries per Member State and publish it accordingly;
Amendment 153 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 91 – point a
Paragraph 91 – point a
a. Substantially simplify rules and procedures, develop compulsory training sessions and practical information for applicants, in particular new applicants, and improve the assistance and guidelines for SMEs, spin- offs, start-ups, administration and payment agencies and all other relevant stakeholders without compromising the quality of the controls;
Amendment 156 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 91 – point d a (new)
Paragraph 91 – point d a (new)
da. contributes to the transparency and accountability of CAP spending by collecting and publishing data on biggest AGRI beneficiaries across the Member States, including the integrated data from other EU funds;
Amendment 159 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 94
Paragraph 94
94. NotesIs concerned that, of the 28 transactions the Court examined, nine (32 %) were affected by errors, that the Court quantified six errors which had an impact on the amounts charged to the Union budget, and that the Court also found six cases of non- compliance with legal and financial provisions, with no impact on the Union budget;
Amendment 165 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 100
Paragraph 100
100. Welcomes the adoption of NDICI- Global Europe in 2021 as the main funding instrument under this MFF heading, with its objective to uphold and promote Union values, principles and fundamental interests worldwide, and help promote multilateralism and stronger partnerships with non-EU countries; notes that NDICI- Global Europe reflects a major change compared to the 2014-2020 MFF, with the integration of cooperation with African, Caribbean and Pacific partner countries, previously financed by the European Development Funds, into the Union general budget; regrets that a more integrated approach in global development projects is missing;
Amendment 166 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 102 a (new)
Paragraph 102 a (new)
102a. Calls on the Commission to provide a comprehensive overview of spending under the new Global Gateway programme and simplifies the existing instruments in order to mainstream EU priorities under the Global Gateway; welcomes in that regard the Team Europe approach and urges the Member States to ensure that the selection of development projects is aligned with the Commission priorities;
Amendment 168 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 104
Paragraph 104
104. Notes the results of the seventh study on the Residual Error Rate (RER) carried out in 2021 by DG NEAR, and in particular the overall RER that was found to be 1,05 %, below the materiality threshold of 2 %; noteregrets the limitations that the Court identified as regards the methodology to determine the RER, in particular that a substantial share of DG NEAR’s expenditure is not considered in the sampling population of the RER, which the Court considers to carry the risk that errors remain undetected; is in particular worried that DG NEAR did not disclose the limitations in its 2021 Annual Activity Report;
Amendment 172 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 105 a (new)
Paragraph 105 a (new)
105a. Notes the importance of linking the rule of law conditionality, as well as the alignment with EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy; reiterates that IPA III funding shall be strictly linked to the these criteria and no funds be disbursed to the Western Balkans countries unless these criteria are clearly met, as underlined in the ECA Special Report 01/2022 “EU support for the rule of law in the Western Balkans”;
Amendment 178 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 107 – point b a (new)
Paragraph 107 – point b a (new)
b a. increase coherence and sustainability of the NDICI-Global Europe funding;
Amendment 192 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 118
Paragraph 118
118. Takes note that the Court, in its Special Report 28/2022 “Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE)” found that the SURE instrument was a timely response to mitigate the risk of unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic and that it entailed a limited financial risk to the Union budget; welcomes that SURE loans helped to finance the national job retention schemes to contain the rise of unemployment during the COVID-19 crisis; regrets that the impact of SURE cannot be fully assessed because of limitations in the monitoring of data and the lack of an ex-post evaluation; calls on the Commission to significantly improve the monitoring of data and dedicates much needed resources to allow for the reliable assessment of the results and outcomes of its programmes and policies; stresses the fact that a constant lack of ex- post assessments does not provide for a fact based planning of the next Union’s budget;
Amendment 194 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 119 a (new)
Paragraph 119 a (new)
119 a. Stresses an obligation of every EU institution, Member State, public or private recipient of Union's funds to disclose all documents, even confidential ones, upon an official request made by the Court as part of the ongoing audit; deplores and finds Commission's refusal to provide the Court with information on the preliminary negotiations conducted by the President of the Commission for a contract with Pfizer/BioNTech unacceptable ; finds this refusal by the Commission a dangerous precedens that could severely limit the Court in carrying out their core business as set in the TFEU;
Amendment 201 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 121 – point b
Paragraph 121 – point b
b. verify that COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers comply with the terms of advance purchase agreements, in particular as regards production cost estimates, the use of upfront financing and, where applicable, no-profit clauses, and take corrective action as necessary and keep the Discharge authority fully informed;
Amendment 213 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 124
Paragraph 124
124. Notes the Court’s observation regarding the RRF in its 2021 Annual Report concerning the first payment request from Spain; notes that the Court assessed the Commission’s ex-ante work on all milestones associated with the payment to Spain in 2021; observesis concerned by the fact that it will not be possible for the Court to assess all milestones associated with future payments;
Amendment 231 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 127
Paragraph 127
127. Recalls the CONT committee’s opinion to the committee on Budgets and the committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation establishing the RRF; recalls the call therein for a list of all final beneficiaries and projects of the Facility; considers that Article 22(2) (d) of that Regulation puts the requirement on the Member States to keep these records, and that the provisions in Article 22(3) call for making the data concerned availableavailable at the Commission’s disposal in the framework of discharge, for the discharge authority;
Amendment 243 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 130
Paragraph 130
130. Notes the Commission’s approach to adherence to procurement and state aid rules in the investments under the RRP is to rely on national systems, and revert to infringement procedures when cases of non-compliance in Member States are detected; considers that the protection of the Union financial interests is not timely guaranteed and does not necessarily target the beneficiaries that enjoyed an unfair advantage of the cases of non-compliance; acknowledges that the first responsibility in this regard lies with the Member States; recalls the repeated findings by the Court as reflected in previous discharge reports that the work of certain national authorities is too error-prone and unreliable; stresses therefore that the Commission has the residual responsibility to make sure that effective and efficient internal control systems are in place, and to step in where Member States do not act as is required by the RRF Regulation; including through partial payments when there is non- compliance with public procurement or state aid rules;
Amendment 245 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 131
Paragraph 131
131. Is concerned that differences in the quality of controls and the complexity of the control systems applied by the Member States may result in a less effective internal control system for the funds available under the RRF in some/many Member States; is concerned by repeated warnings by OLAF, the EPPO, Europol and other competent bodies that a less effective internal control system attracts misuse, fraud and organised crime;
Amendment 250 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 132
Paragraph 132
132. Reiterates that the effectiveness of the rule of law conditionality mechanism in smaller part rests on information stemming from audits and investigations at Union level and not having this information available will make the mechanism less effectivecould negatively influence the effectiveness of the mechanism;
Amendment 259 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 135
Paragraph 135
135. Acknowledges that the Scoreboard contains a complete and useful repository of official documents that gives insight in the most important agreements reached with the Member States in the National RRPs and related documents; regrets howevernotes in this regard that the RRF Scoreboardregulation does not allowrequire tracing financial flows from Union- level to the level of the final beneficiaries in the Member States and does not provide a clear overview of the actual implementation of the RRF in that regard due to its governance;
Amendment 264 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 136
Paragraph 136
136. Considers that the element of Union funding being additional to national funding is not satisfactorily communicated by the Commission, and that it cannot be excluded with certainty that money from the RRF is used to replace national expenditure; considers an analysis of national expenditure is necessary to see if to what extend the funding made available through the RRF ishas been truly additional and was not used to substitute recurring national expenditure, in accordance with Article 5(1) of the RRF Regulation; considers inrecalls that in line with thise regard that it is unclearulation at this stage there is no information available on what has happened with the payments andto pre-financing received by Member States for which no investment related costs were incurred yet;
Amendment 277 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 141
Paragraph 141
141. Is deeply worried by the negligible contribution of the RRF to cross-border cooperation, especially considering the amounts of Union funding involved; calls on the Commission to ask the member States to involve a much stronger element of cross-border cooperation in the updated National Recovery and Resilience plans and in particular in the RepowerEU chapters;
Amendment 288 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 145
Paragraph 145
145. Notes the statements made by Commission representatives that all payments will go towards the investments made under the RRF, so that after a certain time lag where instalments are paid out for reforms as well, by August 2026, the total amount of payments will have been spent on investments; rRecalls the Court’s finding that the Commission, in its assessment of all National RRPs , gave a ‘B-rating’ for the cost estimates of these investments, calling into question the accuracy of the amounts involved; underlines in the light of the Commission’s statement the problematic fact that of front-loading reforms and back-loading investments in the RRPs; reiterates its concern that this only amplifies the risk that Member States might not request the last payment tranche, and thus might fail to fulfil all reforms and investments after having received made under the RRF, highlighting possible problems with the accuracy of the amounts involved; underlines that the specific combination of investments with reforms ensures that necessary reforms are implemented in a timely manner and often in the leargest part of their total financial support under the RRFlier years and upheld; emphasises that the discharge authority cannot wait to receive full clarity on the proper use of Union funds until after the end of the RRF;
Amendment 292 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 146
Paragraph 146
146. Notes that it is important that all funds allocated to the Member States under the RRF will result in reforms and investments, as only then the discharge authority can be sure that all funds were allocated to final beneficiaries in full respect of the principle of additionality; recalls the criticism expressed in previous discharge reports of the practice that some Member States systematically overbook funding programmes in shared management and withdraw projects from Union funds when irregularities and/or fraud are discovered in its related expenditure, thereby effectively evading Union investigations and/or an effective follow-up and possible corrections; deplores that the burden of these irregularities and possible fraud is shifted to the national budget, and thus, the national tax-payer;
Amendment 300 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 147
Paragraph 147
147. Is worried by the Court’s observation that certain milestones and targets lack clarity; shares the Court’s concern that the absence of clear and comparable definitions of milestones and targets implies the risk that these milestones and targets are difficult to assess and the related risk that the initially aimed at objective was not fulfilled; underlines that this leaves the Commission with a large margin of discretion when assessing whether a vaguely defined milestone and target was “sufficiently” achieved; notes in this regard the observation of the Court that milestone 395 in the first payment request from Spain was not satisfactorily fulfilled; notes with concern the Commission’s reply that the element that the Court considered as not fulfilled is not part of the milestone, but is contained in the description of the measure;
Amendment 304 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 148
Paragraph 148
148. Is worried by the finding of the Court that milestones and targets are often based on output and even input indicators, which limits the possibility of measuring the performance of measures by presenting achieved results and ultimately their middle-term impacts on the Union policy objectives of the RRF;
Amendment 306 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 149
Paragraph 149
149. Notes the Court’s finding that the Commission’s assessment of RRPs was often based on arrangements not yet in place; notes in this regard the Court’s finding that the Commission included additional milestones and targets to be achieved before the first payment in order to adopt the RRP; is worried that not having a fully functional monitoring system in place at the start of the implementation of the RRP risks that milestones and targets in reality may not have been fulfilled until the milestones on monitoring are fulfilleddelays in assessments and monitoring of achieving milestones and targets; highlights the fact that the monitoring systems or implementing bodies were partly not yet in place at the time the RRPs were approved also limited the Commission’s assessment of their administrative capacity; notes further in this regard the Court’s finding that even on audit and control arrangements, the last resort in terms of reliability of information, an A rating was given despite several measures not being in place; recalls that adequate audit and control structures are a prerequisite for receiving funds from the RRF;
Amendment 311 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151
Paragraph 151
151. Strongly supports the recommendations of the Court in its Annual Report as well as in related special reports; calls on the Commission to implement them without delay and to keep the discharge authority informed on the progress of the implementation;
Amendment 312 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 152 – point a
Paragraph 152 – point a
a. develop an effective methodology to sample milestones and targets for which it will re-assess the Commission’s assessment, since it will not have the resources to check all milestones and all targets of all payment requests in the future; considers that this methodology should effectively identify milestones and targets that have a higher risk of non- fulfilment and / or have a higher relevance to contribute to the overall success of the final goals set;
Amendment 332 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point g
Paragraph 153 – point g
Amendment 335 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point i
Paragraph 153 – point i
Amendment 340 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point j
Paragraph 153 – point j
Amendment 343 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point k
Paragraph 153 – point k
k. report to the discharge authority what Member States that receivedwith each payment request made by Member State on the share of pre- financing from the RRF that could not yet be allocated to investments did with the funds receivalready cleared;
Amendment 347 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point l
Paragraph 153 – point l
l. only accept milestones and targets for which is has received documentation supporting its implementation, and not just statements of Member States; requests in that regard a re- following a thorough assessment ofby the fulfilment of milestone 215 in the Spanish payment request by a qualified IT-expert, accompanied by a decCommission; paying particular ation of assurance by an IT-auditor, taking account of the requirements of the milestone and ittention in the assessment to the respect of the DNSH principle as rwelated measure, and the statements of the Commission in its assl as to substantiate results for invesstment that the milestone has been satisfactorily fulfilleds contributing to the 37% green target in the RRF;
Amendment 352 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point n
Paragraph 153 – point n
n. closely monitor fulfilment of milestones and targets, given negative experience with the first payment request handled by the Commission, and the non- satisfactory fulfilment of one milestone, in particular also those where additional milestones were considered necessary for audit, monitoring and control purposes;
Amendment 355 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point o
Paragraph 153 – point o
o. discontinue the practice of assessingassess not only the set-up but also the functioning of Member States’ future audit and control arrangementobligations aund in cases where this has already been agreed, to check not just the set-up but also the actual functioninger Article 22;
Amendment 365 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point s
Paragraph 153 – point s
s. strongly encourage Member States that seek to amend theirin their amended RRPs to include cross-border projects in their investments and to put more emphasis on such truly European projects in general;
Amendment 377 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point v
Paragraph 153 – point v
v. make sure that the reliability of the repositories of the final beneficiaries of the Member States is guaranteed, in particular as regards the integrity and completeness, with a view that once irregularities concerning final beneficiaries are discovered, correct follow-up at Union level is ensured;