Activities of Chris MACMANUS related to 2020/2126(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on MFF 2021-2027: fight against oligarch structures, protection of EU funds from fraud and conflict of interest
Amendments (15)
Amendment 27 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. EncouragesCalls on the Member States to use the different redistributive tools, going beyond the mandatory requirements, for a fairer distribution of funds and to apply the capping provisions on direct payments;
Amendment 40 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5 a. Calls on the Commission to request EU member states collect and publish the data in a transparent and user-friendly manner (including the machine readable format) on the EU agriculture funds payments in order to enable public control of final beneficiaries and the use of the EU funds;
Amendment 41 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 b (new)
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5 b. Notes that government sale or lease auctions are used by oligarch structures to purchase land, exceeding state limits on maximum hectare purchases, enabled by lax checks on such transactions;
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Recalls Article 60 of EU Regulation 1306/2013, which introduces the Circumvention clause against artificially created conditions for obtaining advantages;
Amendment 52 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Paragraph 6 b (new)
6 b. Commends the work of the European Court of Auditors and the European Anti-Fraud Office in tackling such structures;
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 c (new)
Paragraph 6 c (new)
6 c. Urges greater use of the EU Copernicus ob-servation programme to detect discrepancies between declared and actually cultivated parcels;
Amendment 54 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 d (new)
Paragraph 6 d (new)
6 d. Recalls that in Bulgaria in 2019, checks of 22,007 hectares on the ground revealed errors of around 10per cent in the declared areas for subsidising under the coupled support measures;
Amendment 55 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 e (new)
Paragraph 6 e (new)
6 e. Deplores acts of physical intimidation against farmers, such as those which took place in Slovakia, and which were investigated by the CONT committee in 2018;
Amendment 56 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 f (new)
Paragraph 6 f (new)
6 f. Recalls that in Romania the authorities have intensified fraud investigations con-cerning EU money in the last four years, identifying a prejudice of more than 100 million EUR, of which almost 90% is related to EU funds;
Amendment 57 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 g (new)
Paragraph 6 g (new)
6 g. Call on the Commission to increase the weight of the political aspect of its evaluation processes, as the issue of conflict of interest as well as of revolving doors in the sector is a serious problem;
Amendment 58 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 h (new)
Paragraph 6 h (new)
6 h. Calls on the Commission to monitor the situation of Agriculture Paying Agencies in the member states and ensure both their formal and informal independence and bring their work in compliance with the EU rules, securing this inter alia through randomly generated visits a better EU control system in place;
Amendment 59 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 i (new)
Paragraph 6 i (new)
6 i. Call for the European bodies responsible for investigating and tackling the misuse of EU funds, including the European Public Prosecutors Office and OLAF, to be equipped with sufficient re-sources to proceed effectively with their responsibilities in terms of the protection of the EU’s budget;
Amendment 60 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 j (new)
Paragraph 6 j (new)
6 j. Call on the Commission to ensure that the Fifth Anti-money laundering directive is implemented fully and correctly in all member states, particularly with regard to the implementations of public registers of beneficial owners and registers of beneficial owners of trusts;
Amendment 61 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 k (new)
Paragraph 6 k (new)
6 k. Recalls the case of Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, that although he transferred Agrofert into two trust funds in February 2017, he is still the beneficial owner, as concluded by auditors, of Agrofert hold-ing, and thus in conflict of interest;
Amendment 62 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 l (new)
Paragraph 6 l (new)
6 l. Recalls the situation of Bulgaria, where 230 biggest beneficiaries received direct subsidies of more than 120 million euro. In other words, 0.33 per cent of the beneficiaries took 15.3 per cent of all payments, while at the same time, 48 per cent of the smallest beneficiaries retained a meagre 3.4 per cent of the payments;