Activities of Bart STAES related to 2015/2154(DEC)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2014, Section III – Commission and executive agencies PDF (1 MB) DOC (647 KB)
Amendments (50)
Amendment 22 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E a (new)
Recital E a (new)
Ea. whereas the Commission is the ultimate responsible for the implementation of the Union budget while the Member States have to sincerely cooperate with the Commission to ensure that the appropriations are used in accordance with the principles of sound financial management; whereas Member States, especially under shared management of funds, have a special responsibility for implementing the Union budget;
Amendment 23 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E b (new)
Recital E b (new)
Eb. whereas it is crucial that, under shared management of funds, the data communicated by the Member States are fair and accurate; whereas it is crucial that Member States understand their own responsibility for the management of the Union funds under shared management;
Amendment 56 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 – point a
Paragraph 21 – point a
(a) better aligning the MFF to the Europe 2020 Sstrategy and the MFFproposing its revision if needed to better match the Europe2020 Strategy;
Amendment 58 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22a. Asks the Commission to include in the next evaluation reports provided for in article 318 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union an analysis of the efficiency, the effectiveness and the results achieved in terms of growth and jobs by the investment plan of EUR 315 Billion announced by the President of the Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, on 26 November 2014 in the plenary session of the Parliament;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Regrets that a lack of reliability of the first-level checks performed by the Member States in shared management and weaknesses in excluding ineligible land from the Landfill Parcel Identification System (LPIS) still persist; points out that according to the Court's annual report for 2014 both the shared management areas and all other operational expenditure (which is mostly directly managed by the Commission) have an estimated error rate of 4,6%;
Amendment 67 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33
Paragraph 33
33. Notes with concern that if the corrective measures taken by the Member States and the Commission had not been applied to the payments audited by the Court, the overall estimated level of error would have been 5,5% rather than 4,4%; urges therefore the Commission, authorities in the Member States or independent auditors to use all information available to prevent, detect and correct possible errors;
Amendment 69 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
34. Stresses that for the operational expenditure the estimated level of error for spending under shared management with the Member States amounts to 4,6 % (2013: 4,9%) andwhich remains at an very high level; is worried that for the other forms of operational spending where the Commission has a leading role, it is alsthe estimated level of error has rocketed up to 4,6% (2013: 3,7%);
Amendment 75 #
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; points out that using all information available might have reduced the level of error by 3,3 percentage points for both expenditure under regional and urban policy (6.1 %) and for rural development, environment, climate action and fisheries (6.2 %); stresses that using all information available might have reduced the level of error by 2,8 percentage points for competitiveness for growth and jobs, directly managed by the Commission;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 62
Paragraph 62
62. NoteReminds that a large responsibility for correct allocation of the Union budget lies with the Member States, as 76% of expenditures are spent under shared management; therefore stresses that Member States have an important responsibility on implementing correctly and lawfully the Union budget when they are responsible for the management of the Union funds
Amendment 102 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 64
Paragraph 64
64. Underlines that the better the Member States strive to fulfil the national and quantified Europe 2020 Strategy targets, the more Union budgetary spending can be targeted, and the more those targets will reflect the real Union economic, social, territorial and environmental needs, the better the Union will ensure an environment for sound financial management; in this context, recommends the creation of a permanent platform composed of the Commission and, national governments´ representations, including the PERM-REPs, and regional governments;
Amendment 104 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 65
Paragraph 65
65. Shares the Court's finding that the Commission, national authorities and independent auditors must use all the relevant information available to prevent, or detect and correct errors before reimbursement; firmly states that when data are available there should be no reason for the Commission, the national authorities and the independent auditors not to take the appropriate measures to prevent, detect and correct errors;
Amendment 133 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 83 a (new)
Paragraph 83 a (new)
83a. Is of the opinion that the MFF mid- term revision, to be presented by the Commission by the end of 2016, is the first and best opportunity to structurally tackle the high level of RAL; urges the Commission to come up with a proposal to revise the MFF regulation in order to fix, among other matters, the RAL;
Amendment 139 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point a
Paragraph 89 – point a
(a) the largest proportion is still contributed by Member States depending on their gross national income (GNI) which contradicts the letter and the spirit of the Treaty, in 2014 this contribution amounted to EUR 94,9 billion;
Amendment 149 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 103
Paragraph 103
103. NotWelcomes that the structure of the Court's annual report follows, for the first time, the headings of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) which entered into force on 1 January 2014; in 2013 the chapter was called "Research and other internal policies"; this policy change limits the comparability of the Court's findings with those of previous years;
Amendment 150 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 105
Paragraph 105
105. IReminds that the Heading 1a has been sharply reduced during the MFF negotiation (- 24 % compare to the initial Commission's proposal); is aware that the heading 1a. of the MFF includes spending in favour of improving research and innovation, enhancing education systems and promoting employment, ensuring a digital single market, promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency, modernising the transport sector and improving the business environment, especially for SMEs;
Amendment 152 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 109
Paragraph 109
109. Is pleased that the Commission was able to meet most targets of the key performance indicators (KPI); doubts however, that the target of investing, by 2020, 3% of the Union GDP in research and development can be met; calls on all Member States to rise to the challenge; calls upon the Commission to draw the necessary conclusion for the forthcoming mid-term revision of the MFF to be presented by the end of 2016;
Amendment 170 #
Motion for a resolution
New subheading after paragraph 128
New subheading after paragraph 128
ITER
Amendment 171 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 a (new)
Paragraph 128 a (new)
128a. Reiterates its concern about the systematic delays in the ITER programme which questions its efficiency and effectiveness; is deeply worried by the over costs, which have impacted upon the cost-effectiveness of the programme and put other Union programmes in jeopardy, mainly in the research policy area; recalls with much regret the meeting organised in the Parliament on 11 November during which merely a future action plan was announced but not presented; is troubled by the Commission replies of 3 December 2015 pointing out that the ITER Council of November 2015decided that the "(...) assumptions underlying the proposed project's schedule cannot be considered to be fully realistic and that the associated IO costs appear excessive, in particular in relation to staffing requests. Further iterations are needed with the Domestic Agencies (in particular F4E) to ensure the reliability, stability and cost sustainability of the schedule proposal over the long term. (...)For this reason, the ITER Council decided at this last meeting to carry out a high level independent assessment on the result of the work presented by the ITER Organization, covering both technical and resource matters. This assessment should be available before the ITER Council of June 2016, (...)"; considers progress to be highly unsatisfactory;
Amendment 172 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 b (new)
Paragraph 128 b (new)
128b. Calls on the Directorate General for Research and Innovation to publish, in the respective annual activity reports, its contribution to the Commission's country specific recommendations in a comprehensive and detailed way as these recommendations could demonstrate how the directorate general facilitates Member States' progress towards the EU 2020 objectives;
Amendment 173 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 c (new)
Paragraph 128 c (new)
128c. Asks the Commission to transmit to the Parliament the action plan presented to the ITER Council in November;
Amendment 174 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128 d (new)
Paragraph 128 d (new)
128d. Insists to receive from the Commission, by June 2016, an update on a long term project schedule and associated costs for ITER in preparation of budgetary decisions for the following year; recalls that for 2016 payment appropriation at a level of almost EUR 475 million have been set aside for ITER;
Amendment 178 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 133
Paragraph 133
133. NotWelcomes that the structure of the Court's Aannual report follows, for the first time, the headings of the MFF which entered into force on 1 January 2014; in 2013 the Court's annual report contained two distinct chapters: one on "Regional policy, transport and energy" and the other one on "Employment and social affairs"; considers that this policy change limits the comparability of the Court's findings with those of previous years;
Amendment 180 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 138
Paragraph 138
138. Notes that in the area of regional and urban policy, the four most important KPI include: number of jobs created, number of enterprises cooperating with supported research institutions, number of enterprises receiving report and additional capacity of renewable energy production; whereas global achievements reported in Member States' implementation reports progressed on average by 29% compared to the previous year, not all targets will be met due to the economic crisis, according to the Commission; calls upon the Commission to draw the necessary conclusion for the forthcoming mid-term revision of the MFF to be presented by the end of 2016;
Amendment 183 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 140
Paragraph 140
140. Notes that by the end of 2015, on average 89% of funds were used with some Member States(absorption rate) with Italy (79%), Romania (70%) and Croatia (59%) trailing behind;
Amendment 188 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 144
Paragraph 144
144. Shares the Commission's opinion that unemployment rates (especially long-term unemployment) and the percentage of young persons not in employment, education or training (NEETs), are indications of mismatch in the labour market. The five countries with the highest level of long-term unemployment (as share of active population) in the Union are Greece (19,5%), Spain (12,9%), Croatia (10,1%), Slovakia (9,3%) and Portugal (8,4%) against the Union average of 5,1%. The countries with the highest rate of NEETs are Cyprus (33,7%), Bulgaria (30,9%), Hungary (30,3%), Greece (30,0%) and Romania (26,9%) compared to an Union average of 16,37%;
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 147 a (new)
Paragraph 147 a (new)
147a. Finds it frustrating that in 21 cases of quantifiable errors made by beneficiaries, national authorities had sufficient information to prevent or detect and correct the errors before declaring the expenditure to the Commission; had all this information been used to correct errors, the estimated level of error for this chapter would have been 1,6 percentage points lower; in addition, the Court found that for 13 cases, the error that it detected was made by national authorities; these errors contributed 1,7 percentage points to the estimated level of error; this situation, which remained unchanged for some years now, proves a lack of diligence;
Amendment 192 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 147 b (new)
Paragraph 147 b (new)
147b. Stresses that under the ESF the most common types of eligibility issues detected are the following: expenditure declared outside the eligibility period (CZ, DE), overcharged salaries (DE, FI, PL, PT), costs not related to the project (NL, PL, PT), non-compliance with national eligibility rules (PL) and revenue not deducted (AT); the most common examples of failures to comply with public procurement rules are the following: unjustified direct award (DE, IT), unjustified direct award of additional works/services, unlawful exclusion of bidders, conflict of interest and discriminatory selection criteria (FI);
Amendment 193 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 147 c (new)
Paragraph 147 c (new)
147c. Observes that the Court analysed 161 transactions in the regional and urban area (101 concerned ERDF, 55 concerned CF and 5 concerned financial instruments) and 170 transactions of the ESF; 135 of 331 transactions were affected by errors; the Court estimates the error rate to be 5,7% (ERDF and CF error rate estimated to be 6,1%, ESF error rate estimated to be 3,7%);
Amendment 200 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 152
Paragraph 152
152. Welcomes the fact that the Commission has set up, in November 2014, a tTask fForce for bBetter iImplementation for Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy (South), Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in order to avoid de- commitment of funds;
Amendment 201 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153
Paragraph 153
153. Recalls that the legal framework for ESIFsuropean Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) 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 (Bulgaria, Czech republic, Greece, Hungary, Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia) and will be assessed by 2016; stresserecalls 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;
Amendment 210 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161
Paragraph 161
161. Regrets that Member States have not yet fully embraced the sSimplified cCost oOption (SCO) under the ESF; whereas the Commission expects the that under the programming period 2014-2020 on average 35% of cost will be claimed under the SCO, some Member States (Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden) will be significantly above, other Member States (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia and Slovakia) will be significantly below;
Amendment 211 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 164 a (new)
Paragraph 164 a (new)
164a. Recalls that the implementation of 51 priority projects in Greece needed to be accelerated; furthermore, 14 projects - concerning, among other issues, the cadastre and the national registry - have been identified as "bottleneck" projects and run the risk of de-commitment; expects the Commission to update Parliament on the situation in the 2014 Commission discharge follow-up report;
Amendment 212 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 164 b (new)
Paragraph 164 b (new)
164b. Recalls that the Czech Audit Office report OPTP/2014/SM/01 on the procurement procedure for the monitoring system for 2014-2020, which was filed with the Commission in April 2015, refers to unwarranted expenditure of over EUR 9 million; welcomes that the Commission has issued a letter of warning of possible interruption of payments and called on the Czech authorities to apply the adequate financial corrections; wishes to know how the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) assessed the situation;
Amendment 213 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 164 c (new)
Paragraph 164 c (new)
164c. Is concerned by infringements of public procurement rules during the tendering procedure for IT monitoring systems during the financing periods 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 which also gave rise to suspicion of fraud; notes that these errors were discovered by the Czech audit authorities; fully supports the Commission's position that no payments should be made until the respective corrective measures were taken and the police investigation was completed;
Amendment 214 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 164 d (new)
Paragraph 164 d (new)
164d. Considers that a former employee of the Czech Ministry of Regional Development and current staff member of Commissioner Crețu's private office should not follow Czech regional policy affairs, as such an assignment constitutes a potential conflict of interest;
Amendment 240 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 191
Paragraph 191
191. Is of the opinion thatUrges the Commission musto continue to rigorously address the weaknesses of "first level checks" in Member States, one of the most important sources of error;
Amendment 270 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 230 a (new)
Paragraph 230 a (new)
230a. Deeply regrets that the Greek certifying body significantly underestimated the level of error reported for financial year 2014 in the framework of the "reinforcement of assurance procedure"1a and stresses that overall for the 6 Member States which had opted for the voluntary application of this procedure(Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Luxemburg, United Kingdom), the Court found that with the exception of Luxembourg the weaknesses in its implementation render the reported levels of error unreliable; __________________ 1a See 2014 ECA annual report point 7.44 to 7.50.
Amendment 271 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 230 b (new)
Paragraph 230 b (new)
230b. Regrets that the Court detected weaknesses in the control systems related to transactions in rural development of the five paying agencies it visited in 2014: Ireland, Italy(Campania) Portugal, Romania and Sweden and, in particular, in the checks related to eligibility conditions for environmental conditions, the maximum size of companies and to public procurement procedure;
Amendment 277 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 234 – point c a (new)
Paragraph 234 – point c a (new)
(c)a to report in details to Parliament on the implementation of the capping in CAP direct payments member state per member state;
Amendment 295 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 250
Paragraph 250
250. FWelcomes the fact that the Court issued a specific error rate as to the expenditure directly managed by the Commission (the multi-donor and budget support transactions being excluded) and regrets that the error rate for those specific transactions has been quantified at 3,7%; finds it frustrating that in seven cases of quantifiable errors, the Commission had sufficient information to prevent or detect and correct the errors before accepting the expenditure; notes that had all this information been used to correct errors, the estimated level of error for this chapter would have been 0,2 percentage points lower;
Amendment 307 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 270
Paragraph 270
270. Notes the strong attention of the public and the media foron integrity issues, implying and the need for strong ethics regulation in order to fulfil Articles 17 TEU and 245 TFEU; insists that well-functioning codes of conduct demand continuous attention; stresses that a code of conduct is only an effective preventative measure if properly applied and if compliance is systematically reviewed, not only in cases of incidents; points out that a review of the code of conduct is needed by the end of 2017;.
Amendment 310 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 271
Paragraph 271
271. Calls on the Commission to report on the current status of Member State's legislation concerning view the code of conduct for Commissioners by the end of 2017, including by defining what constitutes a "conflicts of interest" and to present recommendations, considering that the same principles should apply to candidate members and members of thes well as introducing criteria for assessing the compatibility of post-office employment and extending the cooling off period to three years for Commissioners;
Amendment 313 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 272
Paragraph 272
272. Points out that an important step with regard to conflicts of interest is to increase the transparency of the Commission President, the ad hoc ethical committee of the Commission whichand of the Secretariat General, when reviewsing situations of potential conflict; notes that only if the opinions of the ethical committee are published proactively, can the public hold the Commission accountable; reiterates the Parliament's recommendation that the ad hoc ethical committee be reformed to extend its powers and include independent experts;
Amendment 316 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 272 a (new)
Paragraph 272 a (new)
272a. Calls on the Commission to publish the declarations of interest in an open, machine-readable format.
Amendment 347 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 280 a (new)
Paragraph 280 a (new)
Amendment 350 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 281
Paragraph 281
281. Regrets the delay in the Commission'minds that since May 2015, the Commission has promised to deliver its assessment of tobaccohe agreements; calls on the Commission to provide this as soon as possible, outlining the results of the investments made using the money paid by tobacco companies under these agreements with PMI as soon as possible; stresses that the Commission postponed several times the publication of the assessment and that it was finally published on 23rd February 2016, one day before a Plenary debate on this issue in the Parliament; firmly believes that such delayed publication is considered by the Parliament to be a serious failure on the part of the Commission to meet its obligations of transparency, both to the Parliament and to citizens ; thus undermining the Parliament's capacity to express its view in a timely manner on this complex and delicate matter;
Amendment 353 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 283
Paragraph 283
283. Urges all the relevant Union institutions to implement Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC in accordance with the recommendations contained in the guidelines thereto; urges the Commission to publish immediately the assessment agreements with tobacco companies and an impact assessment on the implementation of the WHO FCTCrsue prompt ratification of the FCTC Protocol and welcomes its commitment to invite Member states and third countries to ratify it; believes however that renewal of the agreement would send a damaging and counterproductive message to third countries that the EU has inappropriate interactions with the tobacco industry, although the Protocol clearly prohibits such interactions;
Amendment 355 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 283 a (new)
Paragraph 283 a (new)
283a. Expresses the belief that renewal of the PMI Agreement may not be compatible with the EU's obligations under Article 5.3 of the FCTC, which could cause reputational damage to the EU as a global leader on tobacco control;
Amendment 357 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 283 b (new)
Paragraph 283 b (new)
283b. Emphasises that the PMI Agreement was an innovative instrument when first concluded in 2004 in tackling the illicit tobacco trade, but stresses that the market and regulatory environment have experienced substantial changes since that date; stresses that the agreement does not address important characteristics of the illicit tobacco trade today, particularly the high proportion of the trade now made up of "illicit whites"; is therefore of the opinion that all elements which are covered in the agreement with PMI will be covered in the new legal framework of the Tobacco Products Directive and the FCTC Protocol;
Amendment 358 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 283 c (new)
Paragraph 283 c (new)
283c. Reiterates therefore that the agreement with PMI should not be renewed, extended or renegotiated; and asks the Commission not to renew, extend or renegotiate the agreement beyond its current date of expiry;