Activities of Inés AYALA SENDER related to 2018/2166(DEC)
Reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2017, Section III – Commission and executive agencies PDF (448 KB) DOC (187 KB)
Amendments (23)
Amendment 77 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Regrets that the Union did not succeeded to manage and respond adequately to both the financial and socioeconomic crisis of 2008 (the case of Greece being an example given the recent apologies of the Commission expressed to this Member States) and the refugee crisis of 2015, which led to further deepening of divisions within the Union between North/South and East/West, to increased inequalities, as well as to growing mistrust among Member States;
Amendment 80 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 5
Subheading 5
Shared managementHARED MANGEMENT
Amendment 84 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22a. Fully supports the position of the Court that its mandate does not imply reporting on individual Member States but presenting an audit opinion on the legality and regularity of the implementation of the Union’s budget as a whole;
Amendment 85 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 b (new)
Paragraph 22 b (new)
22b. Nevertheless, wants to draw attention through the reservations issued by the Commission services during the normal annual Discharge procedures, that all and every Member States perform differently in using the diversity of EU funds and that there are always areas where improvement is required; notes in this regard that for 2017 reservations were issued by: - DG AGRI concerning: AT, BE, BG, HR, CZ, DK, FI, FR, DE, HU, IT, PT, RO, SK, SI, ES, SE, UK ; - DG MARE concerning: BG, CZ, IT, NL, RO; - DG REGIO concerning: BG, HR, CZ, ET, FI, FR, DE, HU, IT, LV, PL, RO, SK, SI, SE, UK; - DG EMPL concerning: AU, CZ, FR, DE, HU, IT, PL, RO, SK, UK - DG HOME concerning: FI, DE, GR, UK;
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 c (new)
Paragraph 22 c (new)
22c. In this sense, notes that although the services of the Commission did not issue reservations in 2017 for IE, LUX, M, CY, LT, in 2016 they issued for DG AGRI: IE, LT, M, CY, for DG EMPL: CY and for DG REGIO: IE;
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Notes the progress in project selection and that by January 2018, 673 800 projects have been selected for support by the ERDF, the CF, the European Social Fund (ESF), and the Youth Employment Initiative, amounting to EUR 260 billion or 54 % of the total financing available for the 2014-2020 period; notes that the rate of project selection has reached 70 % of the total financing available at the end of 2018 and is similar to the selection rate at the same point in the last period;
Amendment 97 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30
30. Observes with concern that as of September 2018 there are still 7 non- completed action plans related to ex-ante conditionalities and that one suspension of interim payments has been adopted and other two are under inter-service consultation for adoption; regrets that the fulfilment of the ex-ante conditionalities proved to be administratively burdensome for managing authorities and one of the reasons for delayed absorption; appreciates in particular the targeted support provided to programme authorities and increased level of implementation reached thanks to the “Catching up Regions” and the “Task force for Better Implementation” initiatives taken by the Commission; asks the Commission to ensure that in the next programming period, the identified weaknesses and problems related to fulfilment of enabling conditions, which will replace ex-ante conditionalities, are properly addressed;
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 38
Paragraph 38
38. Notes with concern that the Court found a persistently high level of error in areas corresponding to one quarter of the budget for ‘Natural Resources’, which includes the expenditure for market measures under the EAGF, rural development, environment, climate action and fisheries under the EAGF; notes in addition that the main sources of error were non-compliance with eligibility conditions, the provision of inaccurate information on areas and non- compliance with agro-environmental commitments;
Amendment 109 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 39
Paragraph 39
39. Calls on the Commission to continue its work to assess the effectiveness of the Member States’ actions to address the underlying causes of these errors and to issue further guidance where necessary;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40 a (new)
Paragraph 40 a (new)
40a. Given that the environmental objectives of the ‘greening’ have not met any of the expectations raised and that they produced a considerable increase of the administrative burden for both farmers and public administrations, asks the Commission to ensure that the green architecture of the new CAP proposal with the so-called eco-scheme, will achieve better environmental results based on the reward of the efforts that overcome the reinforced conditionality of the new proposal;
Amendment 147 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 15
Subheading 15
Direct managementIRECT MANAGEMENT
Amendment 162 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 70 a (new)
Paragraph 70 a (new)
70a. Notes with concern the large number of contracts awarded to a very limited number of national development agencies with the attendant risk of re- nationalisation of EU policy contrary to the interests of greater integration of EU external policy; urges the Commission, in addition to granting the discharge authority access to the pillar assessment, to do so in such a way as to make it publicly accessible; in this regard, notes with concern the commercial focus of these national bodies invoked by the EC to restrict access to such information; calls on the Commission, as soon as possible, to strengthen and consolidate the monitoring of the tendering and contracting procedures to avoid any distortion of competition between this limited number of strongly subsidised national agencies and other public and private entities with a clear European vocation;
Amendment 166 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 25
Subheading 25
Indirect management and financial instrumentsNDIRECT MANAGEMENT AND FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS
Amendment 174 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 79
Paragraph 79
79. Points out that aid to non-Union countries used increasingly alternative financing models - trust funds and the Facility for Refugees in Turkey - which increases the complexity of existing financial structures; however acknowledges that these instruments made it possible to react swiftly to challenging circumstances and provide flexibility;
Amendment 201 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 32 a (new)
Subheading 32 a (new)
Miscellaneous issues
Amendment 202 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 93 a (new)
Paragraph 93 a (new)
93a. Is concerned by the Commission’s delay in addressing the growing problem of the disparity in the correction coefficient applied to European civil servants posted to Luxembourg, given that by 2018 this disparity had more than tripled (16.8%) as compared to the threshold of 5% laid down in the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union, with the resulting erosion of the attractiveness of Luxembourg and unfair discrimination of more than 11000 European Union officials, obliging more than one third of them to reside in neighbouring countries, thus worsening cross-border traffic; urges the EC to follow the example of other bodies such as NSPA (NATO Agency) or EFTA who apply correction coefficients of 13 % and 8.1 % respectively; is troubled by the Commission’s intention to instruct an external company to carry out a study on this correction coefficient, with the aggravating factors of increased costs, delays and questionable methodology, rather than ESTAT, the European body entrusted by the legislator with this kind of task (Annex XI to the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union — Articles 12, 13 and 14);
Amendment 204 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 93 b (new)
Paragraph 93 b (new)
93b. Urges the Commission to terminate as soon as possible, as already done in 2018 with the convention with doctors and dentists, the convention with Luxembourg hospitals on over-charging for the treatment of officials and other servants of the European Union in Luxembourg, which costs more than EUR 2 million per year and is in breach of European Directive 2011/24 as regards the equal treatment of European patients, in line with the judgment of the Court of Justice in the year 2000 (Ferlini judgment);
Amendment 205 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 93 c (new)
Paragraph 93 c (new)
93c. Hopes that the main source of savings in the new JMO II building in Luxembourg is not limited to reducing the ratio of square metres per EU official/staff member and that the new arrangement of collaborative spaces guarantees a decent workplace for all European officials/staff;
Amendment 206 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 93 d (new)
Paragraph 93 d (new)
93d. Demands that the Commission carry out the most rigorous and most up- to-date analysis of the impact of the design of open spaces, such as in the new JMO II building, on the loss of productivity due to interruptions and distraction, noise, etc. — a loss in productivity quoted at 28% on average by the Haworth White Paper ‘Designing for Focus Work’;
Amendment 216 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 98
Paragraph 98
98. Supported the inclusion of Article 63 in the revised Financial Regulation, which introduces the “single audit scheme” into the shared management, emphasising that well-functioning management and control systems at national and European level are a crucial element in the single audit chain; agrees that the single audit approach allows a better use of resources and should avoid duplication of audits at the level of beneficiaries. Notes that the Commission’s single audit strategy is to ascertain the reliability of audit results and error rates reported annually by audit authorities and monitor their work through a robust and coordinated control and audit framework; encourages the Commission to continue monitoring and reviewing the work of audit authorities in order to ensure a common audit framework and reliable results;
Amendment 248 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 122
Paragraph 122
122. Is concernedNotes that the reported global amount at risk at payment estimated by the Commission in its Annual and Performance Report (AMPR) 2017 is based on figures of the individual services responsible for spending programmes which use different methods of calculation of the risk; regrets, therefore, that the lack of harmonizedlevel error reflecting different legal and organisational frameworks; underlines that further harmonisation of methods of calculation undermineswould increase the credibility of the reported global amount at risk and does not allow a clear picture of the situation with regard to residual error rate and the rate of risk on payment in 2017;
Amendment 249 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 123
Paragraph 123
123. In this regard, asks the Commission to further harmonise its methods for calculating error rates taking into account the different management modes and legal bases while making the error rates comparable and to clearly distinguish the amount at risk with and without integrated financial corrections; requests also that the Commission present information about the corrective capacity for recovering unduly payments from the EU budget;
Amendment 251 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 123
Paragraph 123
123. In this regard, asks the Commission to further harmonise its methods for calculating error rates and to clearly distinguish the amount at risk with and without integrated financial corrections; requests also that the Commission present information about the corrective capacity for recovering unduly payments from the EU budget;