Activities of Monika HOHLMEIER related to 2022/2081(DEC)
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 (42)
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Reiterates its deep concerns regarding the situation concerning the rule of law in a number of Member States, which is deeply worrying in its own right and leads to serious losses for the Union budget; underlines that Union funds must not be used for anti-democratic activities or for strengthening authoritarianism; reminds that the EU introduced a legal conditionality mechanism to withhold funding from Member States that subvert the rule of law and welcomes the first application of the conditionalityis mechanism in the case of Hungary, procedure launched in November 2021 and concluded in December 2022 with the freezing of 55% of three cohesion policy programmes (around EUR 6,35 billion); reiteratesnotes that Hungary's and Poland's Recovery Plans have been approved; emphasises that both plans contain several so-called rule of law supermilestones; demands the Commission to continuously monitor the situation and withhold funding as long as the rule of law violations threaten the sound financial management of the Union budget; reiterates in this context its strong conviction that Member States must respect democracy and the rule of law in order to receive Union funds and draws attention to the Commission that the rule of law situation has also been deteriorating in other Member States,; calls therefore on the Commission to trigger without delay the application of the conditionality mechanism whenever breaches of the principles of the rule of law are identified to be affecting or are in serious risk of affecting the sound financial management of the Union budget or the protection of the financial interests of the Union in a sufficiently direct way; moreover stresses that Parliament, Council and the Commission need to closely co-operate together as allies; underlines its strong and repeated requests to the Commission and executive agencies to ensure the protection of the Union budget by making global and systematic use of digital and automated systems for reporting, monitoring and audit;
Amendment 18 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Reminds that the Hungarian economic development has been largely linked to foreign capital investments; deplores therefore the anti-multinational rhetoric of the Hungarian government and that the institutionalisation of corruption and the opaque public procurement system, which should be actually addressed through the reforms requested in the context of the application of the conditionality mechanism, allowed the government to increase in the recent years its ownership in energy, banking , telecom and media spheres; deplores the selective and biased denial of permits and imposition of arbitrarily rigid conditions and restrictions with the goal to economically weaken and bleed out certain foreign companies until they are forced to accept a hostile takeover in full or in part by the Hungarian government or oligarchs close to the government at prices well below the real value of the company; criticises the Commission for not fulfilling its responsibility to defend the internal market and fair competition by not intervening in these broadly deployed breaches of rule of law and internal market rules;
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7 a (new)
Paragraph 7 a (new)
7a. Appreciates the utility of the Kohesio website and the Open Data Platform put in place by the European Commission as transparency and accountability tools for cohesion policy/ shared management related investments for 2014 -2020 and 2021 – 2027 programming periods, bringing together the national lists of EU supported projects and offering a mapping of operations (Kohesio) and providing up to date data on adopted programmes, regular monitoring of finances and EU commitments and payments (Open Data Platform); notes the on-going adaptations performed to adequately cover the 2021- 2027 programming period, but stresses the imperative need of coordination and interoperability with the ARACHNE risk scoring tool; calls therefore on the Commission to ensure effective interoperability between the different tools;
Amendment 39 #
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 and a clear definition, 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 into 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 NGOs;
Amendment 44 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Paragraph 12 a (new)
Amendment 45 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12 b (new)
Paragraph 12 b (new)
12b. The legislation should also oblige the Commission to fully disclose any financial, administrative or cooperation agreements between the Commission and NGOs, particularly funding agreements/contracts with NGOs in which the Commission outsources the implementation of policies or the drafting of legislation or impact assessments to NGOs;
Amendment 99 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40
Paragraph 40
40. Highlights that the time available for implementing shared-management funds under the 2021-2027 MFF is shorter than under previous MFFs; is aware of the challenges in relation to managing and controlling these funds to ensure compliance and sound financial management; is concerned by the increased administrative burden on Member States of the implementation of the NGEU programme and the tendency of Member States to prioritise implementing NGEU over the traditional shared management funds, as discussed in the Public Hearing in the CONT Committee on 23 January 2023;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40 a (new)
Paragraph 40 a (new)
40a. Criticises the huge bureaucracy created by the conflict of interest guidelines that should not attempt to encompass the surveillance of all societal relations of NGOs, political parties or other relationships, but should focus on economic and financial granting or accepting of advantages; asks the Commission to fully respect the principle of proportionality and privacy and focus on detecting severe conflicts of interests and corruptive structures without putting all actors under a general suspicion; calls on the Commission to revise its current guidelines on conflicts of interests in this regard;
Amendment 109 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43 – point e a (new)
Paragraph 43 – point e a (new)
ea. compare implementation rates of the REACT-EU instrument by Member States that were set to receive financial support under the RRF, and Member States where the National Recovery Plan was not yet approved (Hungary and Poland), and identify causes for differences identified, in particular aimed at availability of administrative capacity and report to the discharge authority;
Amendment 143 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 79 a (new)
Paragraph 79 a (new)
79a. Is deeply concerned by the multiple reports highlighting the financing of associations with links to radical religious and political organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood ; calls on the Commission to guarantee that European funds finance only organizations that strictly respect all European values, including freedom of thought, freedom of speech and equality between men and women, notably through the programme Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values;
Amendment 170 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 105 a (new)
Paragraph 105 a (new)
105a. Points out the implementation difficulties of the consortium-lead project Jordan Industry 4.0 & Digitalization Innovation Centre (InJo4.0); highlights that the project lacks clear governance and administration, and that the lead consortium partner has been dominating the project resources in a way that partners had none to only very restricted access to the project resources, with two partners already having left the project; further, a clear conflict of interest of the project lead, who acts as the coordinator of the project, and the fear of a monopoly in favour of the coordinator's company through the appropriation of all intellectual property, questions the Commission’s ability to manage the project; calls on the Commission to conduct an independent audit to get a clear overview of the issues on the ground, ensure the legal and transparent implementation of the project and develop safeguards for future projects to avoid the appropriation by a single company as well as transparent communication channels for projects in third countries;
Amendment 173 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 105 b (new)
Paragraph 105 b (new)
105b. Recalls that the Palestinian Authority (PA) curriculum has been taught without fundamental positive changes, avoiding to incorporate content that meets UNESCO standards, even though the Commission intensified its dialogue with the PA; underlines that education and access to peaceful and unbiased textbooks is essential for pupils to study; stresses that financial support from the Union for the PA in the area of education shall be subject to conditionality of aligning textbook content with UNESCO standards, deletion of all anti-Semitic references, and removal of examples that incite hatred and violence;
Amendment 217 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 125
Paragraph 125
125. Is worried by the Court’s serious finding that for the payment made to Spain in 2021, one milestone was not satisfactorily fulfilled; regrets to note that the Court was not able to quantify this error because of the absence of a methodology to quantify the impact of (partially) not achieving a milestone or target; notes the Commission’s Internal Auditor also observed the absence of this methodology; considers it grave negligence of the Commission to not have this methodology in place before making payments, as this calls into question the Commission’s sincerity of assessing the satisfactory fulfilment of milestones and targets; welcomes however, that the Commission following repeated calls by the discharge authority and the Court on 21 February 2023 adopted a Communication on the RRF including two annexes containing a “Framework for assessing milestones and targets under the RRF Regulation” and a “Commission methodology for the determination of payment suspension under the RRF Regulation”;
Amendment 222 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 125 a (new)
Paragraph 125 a (new)
125 a. Notes that the framework for assessing milestones and targets lacks explanations, i.a. why the verification mechanism and monitoring steps as described in the operational arrangement should not be considered for the assessment and why the de minimis threshold is defined “as around a 5% or less deviation”; underlines that the definitions of “satisfactory fulfilment” of the relevant milestones and target are defined through terms, which lack a clear definition and contain subjective elements such as “minimal deviation from a formal requirement”, “limited and proportional delays” and “minimal deviation from a substance requirement”; asks that further clarifications are given in this regard and calls for a clear and comprehensive approach when assessing deviations in order to ensure they are limited to the necessary extent;
Amendment 223 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 125 b (new)
Paragraph 125 b (new)
125 b. Notes that the methodology for the determination of payment suspension does not provide an explanation for the values chosen as coefficients and also contains subjective elements, such as the upward or downward adjustments of the corrected unit value and terms that lack clear definitions, such as investments of “major importance” or reforms of “particular importance”; asks that further clarifications are given;
Amendment 224 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 125 c (new)
Paragraph 125 c (new)
125 c. Believes that the payment suspension methodology should be further improved as regards the investment component to better link the respective milestones and targets to the real cost incurred; highlights that there should be an on-going assessment of the progress made in order for the fulfilment of milestones and targets not to be largely delayed;
Amendment 225 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 125 d (new)
Paragraph 125 d (new)
125 d. Criticises the assessment of a milestone related to the first payment in 2021, concerning the functioning and full implementation of the required RRF Integrated Information System (the CoFFEE audit system); according to information received during an official mission of the Committee on Budgetary Control, the system was not fully operational at the date of the assessment; acknowledges that the Commission requested supplementary information and identified weaknesses with regard to the collection of information; acknowledges that the system is a strong internal control system for the central government; recommends that the system should be improved in terms of interoperability with relevant systems at EU, regional and national level; underlines that transparency should be increased so that regions are enabled to share best practice and to make adequate information and aggregated digital data easily accessible to the public with modern search functions;
Amendment 232 #
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 beneficiarierecipients 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 available in the framework of discharge, for the discharge authority;
Amendment 237 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 128
Paragraph 128
128. Welcomes the agreement reached in the inter-institutional negotiations on RePowerEU on the bi-annual publication of the 100 biggest beneficiarierecipients of RePowerEU and the RRF by February 2024 at the latest; considers however that this does not replace the requirement to provide the list of all final beneficiarierecipients and projects to auditors and the discharge authority for every financial year;
Amendment 239 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 129
Paragraph 129
129. Notes that the Commission services implementing the NGEU, cohesion and rural development programmes informed the discharge authority that they have coordinated ex-ante to avoid double funding of activities potentially eligible under these programmes; considers that ex- post checks at the level of the final beneficiarierecipients by the Member States are indispensable to identify double funding; reiterates the importance of having a single mandatory integrated information and monitoring system at Union level providing interoperability between Union and national systems, to, inter alia, identify cases of double funding and misuse of funds across Member States;
Amendment 240 #
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 beneficiarierecipients 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 ensuring compliance with all EU and national rules, including in particular public procurement and state aid rules, and rules to prevent and detect fraud, corruption, conflicts of interests and double-funding are in place, and to step in where Member States do not act as is required by the RRF Regulation;
Amendment 244 #
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 result in a less effective internal control system for the funds available under the RRF; is worried by the Court’s observation in its Opinion 04/2022 on the REPowerEU chapters in the recovery and resilience plans about the lack of an effective fraud reporting mechanism that would permit continuous monitoring and supervision of the protection of the EU’s financial interests with regards to the RRF; is concerned by the Court’s observation that Member States have no obligation to report suspicions of fraud in the RRF to the Commission through OLAF’s Irregularity Management System; 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 251 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 132 a (new)
Paragraph 132 a (new)
132 a. Emphasises that there should be better co-governance approach in all Member States where local and regional authorities, civil society organisations, social partners, academia or other relevant stakeholders are adequately involved in the design and the implementation of the NRRPs; calls for their involvement based on clear, fair, transparent and non-politicised principles, in the implementation of the NRRPs to the maximum extent possible under the national legislative framework;
Amendment 253 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 132 b (new)
Paragraph 132 b (new)
132 b. Calls on the Commission to ensure that Member States apply a zero-tolerance approach to corruption, including embezzlement without any exception;
Amendment 260 #
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 however that the RRF Scoreboard does not allow tracing financial flows from Union- level to the level of the final beneficiarierecipients in the Member States and does not provide a clear overview of the actual implementation of the RRF in that regard;
Amendment 267 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 137 a (new)
Paragraph 137 a (new)
137 a. Acknowledges that the Commission established a dedicated IT tool for Member States’ reporting on the implementation of the RRPs (‘Fenix’); is concerned however that the Court’s access to this system is limited both in terms of the number of people having access as well as the scope of the access; welcomes that the Commission has created a functionality in ARACHNE that allows for data on investments and targets from the RRF to be fed into the tool; urges Member States to upload complete and comprehensive data on the RRF into ARACHNE;
Amendment 269 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 138
Paragraph 138
138. Notes that the declaration of assurance of the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs for 2021 is different from the declaration of assurance of all other Directorate-Generals; notes that the declaration concerns the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions, which is aligned with the other Directorates-General; notes further that ‘the implementation of Article 22(5) of the RRF Regulation’, is added; notes the Commission’s reply to written questions from the discharge authority that ‘it is different only in format but not as regards the level of assurance provided’; questions why it was then necessary to explicitly limit the assurance to Article 22(5) of the RRF Regulation, and not to provide assurance over Article 22 in its entirety; emphasises that contrary to the declaration of assurance of all other Directorate-Generals, the one by DG ECFIN does not ensure compliance of the underlying transactions with all EU and national rules at final recipient or project level; concludes that the declaration of assurance by the Commission as guardian of the Treaty, in particular as regards protection of the Union financial interests and accountability towards taxpayers, must be trustworthy and cannot leave any room for doubt that the Commission were to evade its responsibility through diverging declarations of individual authorising officers;
Amendment 273 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 139 a (new)
Paragraph 139 a (new)
139 a. Shares the concerning views of experts in the CONT hearing of 23 January 2023 on the monitoring and control in cohesions funds and NGEU; is particularly worried by the conclusion that NGEU has led to a renationalisation drive of planning, monitoring and control of EU funds, from both EU level to national governments and potentially from regions to national governments; recalls warnings that the RRF may counter positive developments of regional empowerment achieved through cohesion policy in the past decades, and that the lack of a direct financial relation between the Commission and managing authorities weakens core aspects of financial control and discharge;
Amendment 274 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 140
Paragraph 140
140. Notes the Court’s conclusion that in Member States where the share is already high, the additional RRF funding may further add to the pressure on Member States’ ability to spend the funds available to them; is worried that because of the different delivery methods, with direct management for the RRF and shared management for the cohesion policy, the more straight forward implementation method of the RRF will ‘crowd-out’ the more complex funding through cohesion; notes that this will come at the detriment of the involvement of local authorities and regions, civil society organisations and economic and social partners in Union funding; notes that these concernes were shared by experts during the CONT hearing on 23 Jaunary 2023 on the monitoring and control in cohesions funds and NGEU, particularly the risk that some Member States may not have sufficient administrative capacity to handle the burden of these parallel administrative systems; notes that such strain on the administrative capacity was observed on the spot during the CONT mission to Spain in February 2023;
Amendment 294 #
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 investments, as only then the discharge authority can be sure that all funds were allocated to final beneficiarierecipients 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 309 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 150
Paragraph 150
150. Notes from reports of investigative journalists that several Member States have relied on expertise provided by consultancy firms in setting-up the RRF and that these firms in turn offer services to support potential beneficiarierecipients of financial support under the RRF in these Member States;
Amendment 316 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point b
Paragraph 153 – point b
b. make the list of all final beneficiarierecipients and projects of RRF funding available to auditors and the discharge authority for all payments (in 2021 and throughout the implementation of the RRF), and provide full access to the Court to the ‘Fenix’ IT tool;
Amendment 320 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point c
Paragraph 153 – point c
c. adopt as soon as possible the methodology for establishing partial payments for not or partially fulfilled milestones and targets and make it available to the discharge authority; explain to the discharge authority the reasoning and logic behind the “Framework for assessing milestones and targets under the RRF Regulation” and the “Commission methodology for the determination of payment suspension under the Recovery and Resilience Facility Regulation” and consider providing additional definitions to reduce the impact of the subjective elements contained in them;
Amendment 323 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point c a (new)
Paragraph 153 – point c a (new)
c a. support Member States to increase their administrative capacity to handle the parallel administrative systems of RRF and cohesion fund implementation, and help them reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, simplify tenders and provide for more targeted information, thus facilitating the access of SMEs and self-employed to funding;
Amendment 325 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point d
Paragraph 153 – point d
d. apply additional vigilance to signals of misuse, fraud and organised crime targeting the funds available under the RRF together with EUROPOL, the EPPO, OLAF and other relevant actors and introduce reporting on suspicions of fraud in the RRF to the Commission through OLAF’s Irregularity Management System;
Amendment 334 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point h
Paragraph 153 – point h
h. make a clear distinction between expecbudgeted results and achieved results in its communication on the RRF in general and more specific concerning the RRF Scoreboard, in order to correctly inform the general public and avoid misunderstandings;
Amendment 349 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point m
Paragraph 153 – point m
m. reconsider the formulation of the declaration of assurance of the Directorate- General for Economic and Financial Affairs and to re-align iextent with all other Directorates-Generals scope to the compliance of RRF funded measures with EU and national rules for future years given the unsatisfactory justification provided by the Commission and the responsibility as Guardian of the Treaty for the protection of the Union’s financial interests;
Amendment 354 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point o
Paragraph 153 – point o
o. discontinue the practice of assessing Member States’ future audit and control arrangements and in cases where this has already been agreed, to check not just the set-up but also the actual functioning in protecting the financial interest of the Union and compliance with all EU and national rules without limiting it to fraud, corruption, conflict of interest and double funding;
Amendment 361 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point r
Paragraph 153 – point r
r. address the tension between cohesion and the RRF, in particular concerning the involvement of local, regional, economic and social partners and civil society organisations, that makes it easier to absorb RFF funding in comparison to cohesion funding, by putting more emphasis on involvement of these actors in the implementation of the RRF through a co-governance approach;
Amendment 363 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point s
Paragraph 153 – point s
s. strongly encourage Member States that seek to amend their RRPs to include cross-border projects in their investments and to put more emphasis on such truly European projects in general; approve only REPowerEU chapters of Member States which allocate at least 30% of financing to projects having a cross-border or multi- country dimension or effect, as agreed in the REPowerEU negotiations;
Amendment 374 #
u. make sure checks on double funding are included in the Member States’ audit and control frameworks for the NGEU, Rural development and Cohesion programmes and to ensure its proper functioning through system checks; calls in addition on the Commission to verify that double funding does not take place by performing risk based checks on all payments to final beneficiarierecipients under these programmes;
Amendment 375 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153 – point v
Paragraph 153 – point v
v. make sure that the reliability of the repositories of the final beneficiarierecipients of the Member States is guaranteed, in particular as regards the integrity and completeness, with a view that once irregularities concerning final beneficiarierecipients are discovered, correct follow-up at Union level is ensured;