Activities of Joachim KUHS related to 2020/2140(DEC)
Reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2019, Section III – Commission and executive agencies
Amendments (24)
Amendment 1 #
Proposal for a decision 1
Citation 14 a (new)
Citation 14 a (new)
— Having regard to the answer of the Commission to parliamentary question E- 005156/2020;
Amendment 4 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Notes with concern that more than half of EU expenditure in 2019 may be considered as high-risk, including reimbursement-based payments for investments in the areas of cohesion and rural development; notes with concern that the increase in the estimated rate of material error from 4,5 % in 2018 to 4,9 % in 2019 can result in auditors giving an adverse opinion on EU expenditure;
Amendment 4 #
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 2019 / 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 2019;
Amendment 5 #
Proposal for a decision 1
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2 a. Deplores the answer of the Commission to parliamentary question E- 005156/2020, which was given on18 February 2021, five months after it was tabled, which in itself already took weeks to table, given the reluctance of the European Parliament´s internal services; rejects the Commission´s qualification of the Commission´s president expenses as confidential under Regulation No 2018/1725, since the question merely inquires whether the apartment of the Commission President in the Berlaymont building has separate counters for gas, electricity and water from the counters of the rest of the building; urges the Commission to answer this question without further delay;
Amendment 12 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Notes the decrease in the estimated level of error in spending on ‘Economic, social and territorial cohesion’ from 5 % in 2018 to 4,4 % in 2019; welcomes this year- on-year improvement, but is disappointed that it has not proved possible to decrease the error rate to the 3 % level recorded in 2017; is concerned that of the 236 transactions examined, 29 errors had not been detected by audit authorities, taking account of the 64 errors previously discovered by audit authorities and corrections applied by programme authorities (worth a total of 334 million euros for both programming periods taken together);
Amendment 20 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4 a. Regrets that ‘Ineligible projects’ made 55% as a main type of error; notes that for five ERDF projects, from the 2014-2020 programming period, aid was granted to beneficiaries or operations that did not meet the eligibility conditions set out in the applicable regulation and multiannual operational programmes;
Amendment 21 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
4 b. Regrets that ‘Infringements of internal market rules’ made 24% as a main type of error (9% - infringements of state aid rules; 15% - serious non- compliance with public procurement rules);
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 c (new)
Paragraph 4 c (new)
4 c. Regrets that ‘Ineligible expenditure’ made 12% as a main type of error;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 d (new)
Paragraph 4 d (new)
4 d. Finds unacceptable the weaknesses found in the work of several audit authorities covered by ECA sample, which currently limit the reliance that can be placed on that work (the recalculated rate was above the 2 % materiality threshold in nine out of 20 assurance packages for the 2014-2020 period, the Commission adjusted the residual error rates for eight assurance packages to a figure above 2 %);
Amendment 24 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 e (new)
Paragraph 4 e (new)
Amendment 25 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 f (new)
Paragraph 4 f (new)
4 f. Is very concerned about the weaknesses found in the work of several audit authorities covered by the European Court of Auditors' (ECA) sample, which currently limit the reliance that can be placed on that work (the recalculated rate was above the 2 % materiality threshold in nine out of 20 assurance packages for the 2014-2020 period, the Commission adjusted the residual error rates for eight assurance packages to a figure above 2 %); notes that for 120 of the sampled transactions (55 %), the ECA was able to draw conclusions on the basis of its review of the work carried out by the audit authorities; is deeply concerned that ECA identified shortcomings with the scope, quality and/or documentation of that work in 100 transactions (45 %), which required the ECA to carry out once more the corresponding audit procedures;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 g (new)
Paragraph 4 g (new)
4 g. Notes that 13 of the compliance audits (5 by DG REGIO and 8 by DG EMPL) were final by May 2020, but for half of these audits, therefore, the residual rates were not yet final;
Amendment 34 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Calls on the Commission to: - clarify eligibility conditions (including by defining what is meant by ‘physically completed’ and/or ‘fully implemented’ operations to help Member States to verify that operations comply with Article 65(6) of the CPR and avoid the non-detection of ineligible operations); - take action to increase the reliability of the residual rates reported by audit authorities (analyse the main sources of undetected errors and develop the necessary measures together with audit authorities to improve the reliability of reported residual rates);
Amendment 45 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7 a. Regrets that the delayed timing of a number of evaluations and studies analysing the results of the 2007-2013 period and the early stages of programming and implementation of the 2014-2020 cohesion policy programmes means that lessons learned are too late to have an impact on either the current or following programming periods (the results of the2014-2020 ex-post evaluations, for example, are expected to be available by the end of 2025 as required by the CPR, by then the 2021- 2027 programming period will be in its fifth year and the Commission is likely to be well advanced in preparing its legislative proposals for the post-2027 period);
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 b (new)
Paragraph 7 b (new)
7 b. Finds the effects of the relatively low levels of implementation in cohesion policy, compared to the rest of EU budget, worrisome; notes that an eventual time lag between the start of the programme, implementation and realisation of outputs and results, together with the fact that the latest data available relates to the end of 2018 in an implementation period lasting until the end of 2023, make it harder at this stage to achieve the objectives;
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7 c (new)
Paragraph 7 c (new)
7 c. Regrets that of 72 indicators in total, only one third of the indicators are on track to meet their targets and that about half of the indicators are not on track; regrets that of 9 indicators linked to the general objectives, only two are on track, meanwhile about one third of the indicators had a mid-term milestone target set for 2018; notes that in total, 40 % of the output indicators are on track, for result and impact indicators, this percentage is 10 %; stresses that of all 10 indicators from the programme statements linked to the objective of supporting the shift towards a low-carbon economy in all sectors, only 1 –‘Number of households with improved energy consumption classification indicator’ – is on track;
Amendment 120 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. RegretsTakes note of the adoption of three amending budgets in 2019, adding EUR 0,4 billion to commitment appropriations and EUR 0,3 billion to payment appropriations;
Amendment 146 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Notes that the current agreement between the Commission, the EIB and the Court concerning audits of operations which are financed or backed by the Union budget expires in 2020; views this an opportunity to ensure that the Court is enabled to have access to information necessary to audit the regularity and also the performance of the EIB activities, which do not fall under a specific Unionits mandate;
Amendment 153 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
Amendment 388 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 112
Paragraph 112
112. Is of the opinion that, as stated in the Court’s audit on TFIs, there is a risk that traffic forecasts were usually overoptimistic, not well coordinated for half of the projects, not based on sound economic assessments and sometimes very simplistic, and in particular cost-benefit analyses had not been properly used as a tool for policy-making;
Amendment 414 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 119
Paragraph 119
119. Finds it worryingNotes that of the 251 transactions examined7 , 44 (18 %) contained errors while 207 (82 %) were error-free; is concernednotes that based on the 36 errors ECA has quantified and other evidence produced by the control system ECA finds the level of error for ‘Natural resources’ to be close to the materiality threshold; _________________ 7The sample consisted of 136 payments under rural development programmes, 95 direct payments, 14 market measures and 6 payments for fisheries, the environment and climate action.
Amendment 484 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 – indent 3 – point e
Paragraph 128 – indent 3 – point e
e. the CAP performance indicators do not measure the efficiency of direct payments. The Court evaluation support studyconcluded that the proportion10 of farms receiving direct payments and generating an income per unit of labour higher than average national labour productivity had decreased from 29 % in 2013 to 26 % in 2015. The study found that 9 % of small farms and more than 30 % of large farms had income per unit of labour above this benchmark; _________________ 10Evaluation study of the impact of the CAP measures towards the general objective “viable food production”, 2020, pp. 108-122.
Amendment 549 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 131
Paragraph 131
131. Notes that, regarding the regularity of transactions, seven (37 %) of the 19 transactions examined by ECA were affected by errors (i.ee.g. overstatement of salary costs);
Amendment 632 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151 – introductory part
Paragraph 151 – introductory part
151. Welcomes the recommendations issued to DG Home by the Internal Audit Service of DG HOMEthe Commission for 2019 such as: