Activities of Monika HOHLMEIER related to 2023/2129(DEC)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2022, Section III – Commission and executive agencies
Amendments (129)
Amendment 14 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Stresses that the sound and timely implementation of the budget contributes to addressing more efficiently and effectively the needs and challenges in different policy areas; warns that the simultaneous implementation of the budgetmultiple instruments with different rules under time pressure may lead to a delay in implementation, an increase in errors and, irregularities, and fraud;
Amendment 18 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Stresses the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)'s contribution to support Member States in recovering from the economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and creating a resilient Union that can shoulder the challenges of the future; notes the contribution of the RRF and RePowerEU in addressing the energy-related challenges caused by the Russia’s war of agression against Ukraine; calls on the Commission and the Member States to implement the associated actions swiftly in accordance with the agreed milestones and targets;
Amendment 19 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Highlights the crucial role the Union budget played in 2022 in addressing the fall-out of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine to secure food supply chains, address energy-related challenges, support Member States in welcoming refugees, and provide assistance to Ukraine in caring for its citizens; notes that this has put pressure on the budget and that all available flexibility measures have been used; notes in that regard the proposals made by the Commission in the Multi- annual Financial Framework (MFF) review to re-orient funds and to raise fresh funds, and calls on the Council to swiftly move forward with the adoption of the proposals; stresses the importance to clarify how to repay EU debt;
Amendment 28 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Recalls the importance of carrying out an ex-post and mid-term evaluations of financial programmes created to respond to a crisis concerning their effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and Union added value; stresses that the speed and a quick response to the crisis should not be to the detriment of proper control over expenditure and calls therefore on the Commission to draw lessons from the crisis response instruments deployed for the Covid-19 crisis, notes that decisions were made quickly under enormous pressure on a program that ended up taking 6 years;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Emphasises the role of the European anti-fraud office (OLAF), the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) in the fight against corruption; calls for the capacities of the EPPO and OLAF, as well as cooperation between them, to be strengthened further; reiterates the need to step up the efforts in the fight against fraud both at Union and Member State level, in close cooperation with the EPPO and OLAF; appreciates the efforts and stresses the role of the EPPO in the investigation and prosecution of fraud and other criminal offences affecting the financial interests of the Union; highlights the importance of the EPPO’s full independence and impartiality for the effective exercise of its functions; recalls the importance of providing the EPPO and OLAF with sufficient financial and human resources calls for common anti- corruption rules applicable to all staff of Union bodies;
Amendment 37 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Welcomes the measures undertaken by the Commission in 2022 and 2023 underEmphasises the major importance of the Rule of Law conditionality mechanism for the protection of the Union budget and asks the Commission to continue to be vigilant and proactive in the current and future cases when the lack of respect for Union values and the Rule of Law affect or threaten to affect; is extremely irritated by the very technocratic and contradictory handling of the mechanism in the case of Hungary across various financing instruments or legal acts in 2022 and 2023; urges the Commission to guarantee a unitary, comprehensive and integrated approach across different funds and legislative instruments; underlines that Union funds must not be used for anti-democratic activities or for strengthening authoritarianism; highlights the deterioration of Rule of Law in some Member States; calls on the Commission to promptly invoke the conditionality mechanism when breaches risk impacting the Union’'s financial interests; supports the blocking of EU funds as long as the conditions are not entirely fulfilled; encourages the Commission not to succumb to blackmailing by Member States;
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8 a. Strongly regrets the Commission’s decision to consider that Hungary has fulfilled the horizontal enabling condition related to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as regards judiciary independence, thus enabling the Hungarian authorities to submit reimbursement claims of up to EUR 10.2 billion without adequate control mechanisms or public procurement procedures in place to guarantee sound financial management and the protection of the EU budget; believes that this decision politically contradicts the decision to prolong the measures adopted under the Conditionality Regulation and expresses its disappointment that Parliament was not adequately informed during the process; underlines that the Commission is tasked with independently and objectively assessing Hungary’s compliance with applicable legislation, without compromising on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights; believes that even after the recent reforms, Hungary does not meet the standard of judicial independence set out in the Charter, as indicated by experts in Hungary and internationally, as the measures adopted do not ensure sufficient safeguards against political influence and can be either circumvented or inadequately applied; is concerned, in particular, about the persistence of obstacles to preliminary references, problems with the allocation of cases in the Kúria, and the deficient system for the nomination of President of the Kúria;
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 b (new)
Paragraph 8 b (new)
8 b. Notes that in 2022 the Council based on a Commission proposal agreed on measures for the protection of the Union budget against breaches of the principles of the rule of law in Hungary; welcomes the temporarily suspension of 55% of commitments for certain cohesion policy programmes for the period 2021- 2027; stresses that the decision was based on the Commission’s concerns regarding severe issues related to the public procurement system in Hungary; stresses the importance that Union needs to protect its financial interests as well during pre-financing;
Amendment 45 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Welcomes the agreement reached in the negotiations on the revised Union financial rules in December 2023; welcomes, in particular, the enhancements related to tracking Union funds through digital tools and interoperability that will bolster the protection of the Union Financial Interests, the targeted extension of the Early Detection and Exclusion System (EDES) to shared management post MFF 2027, the reference to the Rule of Law conditionality mechanism and Union values, the introduction of the principle of social conditionality as enshrined in Article 2 TEU, as well as the opportunity to streamline support for small and medium- sized enterprises and individual applicants by the introduction of very low-value grants;
Amendment 46 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Reminds the Commission that all legislative proposals that have a significant economic, social and environmental impact have to be accompanied by solid and thorough impact assessments, including their impact on gender-related issues, which will ensure that gender- mainstreaming the cost of living for EU citizens, the level of bureaucratization for beneficiaries and administration as well as gender-related issues, to guarantee a fair distribution of EU budget.; stresses that this is part of the Commission’s better regulation agenda; underlines that Commission should conduct impact assessments in a completely neutral and impartial way; furthermore, expects the Commission to improve the costs and benefits analysis of the concerned options by enhancing the Union Budget is successfulparticipation rate of different stakeholders with different views in open public consultations;
Amendment 49 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Is concerned that the late adoption of several sectoral regulations governing different Union policies, such as the Cohesion policy, resulted in a significant delay in the implementation of the 2021- 2027 programming period; urges the Commission and the Member States once more to take all the necessary measures to continue to speed up the implementation of the policies on the ground, while keeping a high focus on compliance with the rules, quality of projects, achievement of results and protection of the financial interests of the Union; highlights in this context the importance of avoiding decommitments which in turn would decrease the impact of the Union budget; highlights in this context the risk that outstanding commitments bear on the Union budget, possibly generating significant decommitments which in turn would decrease the impact of the Union budget; demands that the Commission indicates to the discharge authority the measures it intends to take to avoid this situation;
Amendment 54 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11 a. Calls on the Commission to implement the recommendations of the European Parliament in its resolution of 17 January 2024 on the transparency and accountability of non-governmental organisations funded from the EU budget (2023/2122 (INI));
Amendment 55 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 b (new)
Paragraph 11 b (new)
11 b. Urges the Commission to stop all contracts, payments and grant agreements with NGO’s, networks and other partners that include interest related lobbying or influencing of the legislative processes on behalf of Commission DGs, Agencies and other entities; stresses that these actions violate the code of good conduct; asks the Commission to identify all contracts, agreements and partnerships of this kind and to involve the EDES Panel in cases of severe misconduct; asks the Commission to report to the CONT committee in autumn 2024;
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 c (new)
Paragraph 11 c (new)
11 c. Is extremely concerned about reports that EU taxpayers’ money and funds of other donors distributed to UNRWA were misused by Hamas, instead of benefitting the Palestinian civilian population; is shocked about reports from the Israeli authorities on UNRWA employees being involved in acts of terror; is deeply concerned that the Commission did not act after multiple warnings by Parliament in 2022 about EU funds being misused for terrorist purposes; urges the Commission to insist on controls and audits of UNRWA conducted by ECA, the Internal Audit Service, EU appointed independent external experts, and experienced international partners such as Global Affairs Canada; asks the Commission to use other trusted partners such as the WHO, UNICEF or the Egyptian Red Crescent in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan for delivering funds and help to Palestinian civilians and refugees; asks the Commission to keep Parliament informed about new developments and efforts undertaken to provide direct support to Palestinian civilians and refugees and to prevent terrorist from diverting funds;
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Notes that after the end of the transition period following the UK’s withdrawal process, the Commission estimated that, at the balance sheet date, the Union accounts showed a net receivable due from the UK of EUR 23,9 billion (2021: 41,8 billion), of which it is estimated that EUR 9,1 billion will be paid in the 12 months following the reporting date; considers that any amount in excess of the estimated EUR 9,1 billion should be used to reduce the borrowing- and lending activities of the Commission;
Amendment 65 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. WRegrets the adverse opinion on the legality and regularity of the Union budget expenditure issued by the Court for the fourth year in a row; welcomes the Court’s conclusion that the revenue is free from material error and that the systems for managing the revenue examined by the Court were generally effective; regrets the adverse opinion on the legality and regularity of the Union budget expenditure issued by the Court for the fourth year in a row;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. NotesExpresses concern that the Court estimates the level of error for the 2022 expenditure to be 4,2 % (3 % in 2021), which is abov, which is more than double the materiality threshold; notes the Commission’s confidence that the risk at payment is estimatedat this is a further deterioration compared to the previous two years (3% in 2021 and 2.7% in 2020); notes that the Commission calculates the risk at payment at 1.9 % for 2022 (similar to 2020, 2021 and 2022),1); is representative of the level of error atworried by the fact that, contrary to the Court, the Commission estimates its error rate to be both below the materiality threshold and the lower range of the estime of paymentated level of error of the Court, of 3.1%; notes that the Commission’s estimation of the risk at closure, after ex- post controls and corrections have been applied, is 0.9 %; noteregrets the divergence between the Court’s overall error rate and the Commission’s risk at payment, which is observed for the overall Union budget expenditure in 2022, although not in all expenditure areas; is particularly concerned that the Court’s estimated error rate for 2022 (4,2 %) is mainly driven by ‘Cohesion, resilience and values’ (2,5 % of the overall error rate), ‘Natural resources and environment (0,8 %), ‘Neighbourhood and the world’ (0,4 %), and ‘Single market, innovation and digital’ (0,3 %), all of them considered high-risk expenditure areas by the Court; notes that the Commission’s risk at payment for 2022 is 1,9 %; Stresses the need to reduce the complexity of delivery models;
Amendment 73 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 a (new)
Paragraph 19 a (new)
19 a. Expresses its support for the audit approach and methodology of the Court; notes with concern the divergences between the error rates and risk at payment as calculated by the Court and the Commission; highlights that these differences do not occur in all expenditure areas; remarks the fact that the Commission’s estimates for risk at payment are consistently in the lower range or below the statistical estimations of the Court and is concerned that this represents a systematic underestimation of the existing error level by the Commission; welcomes the sample based approach and methodology of the Court as important indicator for the existing risks;
Amendment 76 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Underlines that the general estimate of the level of error in the Union budget, as presented in the Court’s Statement of Assurance, is an estimate of the money that should not have been paid out because it was not used in accordance with the applicable rules and regulations, and not a measuren indicator of fraud or of inefficiency or wastecorruption;
Amendment 79 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 a (new)
Paragraph 21 a (new)
21 a. Notes with concern however, that the Commission in its Annual Management and Performance Report categorises the expenditure into higher, medium and lower risk segments; emphasises that the use of different risk categories by the Court and the Commission hinders the possibility to make a comparative analysis between from errors and administrative errors of the discharge authority in making a comparative analysis of the respective reports; notes that the Court’s use of the risk categories is in large part used to determine the sample size to ultimately support its opinion on the legality and regularity of expenditure, whereas the commission’s use of risk categories serves to identify areas where additional managerial attention is needed to correct errors;
Amendment 80 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Recalls that the Court’s audit efforts arereport is focused only on the year under review and cannot take; nevertheless, the ECA annual report takes into account the findings of several years and deepens the controls on specific topics with its special reports; in contrast to this method, the Commission takes into account of ththe whole lifecycle of Union programmes and funds, as well as corrections and recoveries after the end of the year under review; even though the different methodologies don’t explain the large difference in the estimation of error rates;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Recalls that Union spending programmes are multiannual by design and their related control systems and management cycles also cover multiple years; recalls that the Commission’s estimates of the risk at closure have a multiannual perspective that takes account of corrections and recoveries over several years; notes that the Commission’s approach is based on hundreds of thousands of tests as defined in control strategies, performed during substantive control and audit work which is primarily aimed at checking compliance with Union rules and regulations, applicable to given programmes, to ultimately establish whether funds need to be recovered from beneficiaries; notes that the range of the risk at payment, determined as part of this approach, resembles most of the Court’s estimated error rate and is considered by the Commission as the best estimate to express the exposure to the Union budget;
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Considers that both approaches serve different purposes and have their benefits, disadvantages, strengths, and weaknesses, and should be used to complement each other while understanding the differences and particularities, such as the different concepts of error and the risk categorisation used by each institution; commends the Commission’s approach for its sheer size and the resulting granularity in identifying where additional efforts are most beneficial and where improvements are needed; cConsiders the Court’s error rate to be an important indicator of compliance with legality and regularity of the implementation of the Union budget; welcomes in this regard the Court’s findings, observations and recommendations as a very useful contribution to the further improvement of the budget management and implementation under different management modes and by all relevant stakeholders; deplores that Commissions analysis neglects the real performance, the quality, the sustainability and the European added value of implemented projects;
Amendment 88 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24 a (new)
Paragraph 24 a (new)
24 a. Notes with concern that substantial issues were detected in reimbursement-based expenditure, which accounts for 66 % of the Court’s audit population, in which the estimated level of error is 6 %; takes note that the effects of the errors found by the Court are estimated as both material and pervasive to the year's accepted expenditure;
Amendment 91 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Notes that, on several issues, the Court’s and Commission’s findings are aligned, most notably concerning the main sources of irregularities in ‘Cohesion’, and the higher risks for market measures and rural development in ‘Natural resources and environment’; notes that specifically in ‘Cohesion’ some cases of eligibility errors identified and quantified by the Court doare not allow the Commissionnecessarily considered to be ineligible by the Commission; the Commission does not see a legal basis to qualify the error as an irregularity to be corrected in line with the definition laid down in Article 2(36) of Regulation (EU) No 1060/2021 (‘the Common Provisions Regulation’ or CPR)2 and thus, the Commission cannot pursue financial correction procedures, and such errors would not enter into the Commission’s estimate of risk at payment; _________________ 2 OJ L 231 30.6.2021, p. 159
Amendment 93 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. WelcomeHighlights that in 2022, 98,5% of the available commitment appropriations were used (EUR 179,4 billion out of EUR 182,2 billion); notes that the available appropriations were higher than the MFF ceiling of EUR 179,9 billion due to the use of special instruments, justified by unforeseen events, using all flexibility available under the MFF; notes that 98,1% of payment appropriations were used (EUR 167,3 billion of EUR 170,6 billion available); commends the Commission and the budgetary authority for its decisive and flexible budgetary response to the challenges faced in 2022;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28 a (new)
Paragraph 28 a (new)
28 a. Notes with concern that at the end of 2021, total outstanding commitments which are accumulated commitments made but not yet paid (RAL), reached a record high of EUR 341,6 billion; highlights that outstanding commitments are likely to exceed EUR 460 billion in 2023 but then will fall with the fulfilment of milestones and targets ; notes that commitments under MFF are still increasing and will continue to rise in the coming years due to the slow start of the programming period with payments following even later; Highlights that the time available for implementing shared- management funds under the 2021-2027 MFF is shorter than under previous MFFs because of the n+2 rule; is aware of the challenges in relation to managing and controlling all the funds under MFF and NGEU due to their pure volume and the different managing, programming, implementing and controlling mechanisms resulting in a very complex system; notes with concern the significant differences in absorption rates by Member States, and the fact that some Member States still have more than 20 % of their committed amounts to absorb in 2023 following the n+3 rule;
Amendment 95 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Notes with concern that the total outstanding commitments reached an all- time high of EUR 450 billion in 2022, caused by both increased commitments related to NGEU (with all National Recovery and Resilience Plans adopted in 2022) and the slow start of the implementation of the 2021-2027 programming period; notes that the Commission expects this amount to further increase in 2023, and foresees a decrease from 2024 to 2027 when committed amounts for both NGEU and the 2021- 2027 programming period should be paid out; recalls that the Commission and Member States are currently behind schedule for payments established with each Member State in the implementing decision approving their NRP, despite the number of payments requests received at the end of 2023; notes that approximately EUR 90 billion of unused loans will not be absorpt by Member States;
Amendment 99 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
31. Notes with concern that Union debt increased from EUR 236,7 billion in 2021 to EUR 344,3 billion in 2022; notes that of the entire debt, only the share of NGEU non- repayable support (EUR 185,6 billion, 53,9 %) creates interest rate risk for the Union budget; notes that, due to growing market interest rates, the cost of new NGEU funding rose from 0,14 % in the second half of 2021 to 1,24% in the first half of 2022, and a further increase to2.60% in the second half of 2022, resulting in EUR 0,5 billion of interest payments for NGEU in 2022, and a considerable increase was projected for 2023; recalls that the repayments of NGEU borrowing should start in 2028 and must be completed by 2058, which will require sufficient financial resourcesis worried about the strong increase of interests since 2020 resulting in a higher financial burden for the yearly budget; recalls that in addition the repayments of NGEU borrowing should start in 2028 and must be completed by 2058, which will require sufficient financial resources; notes that the maximum utilisation of the EU budget in 2022, using all available flexibility, does not allow any repayment of debts, unless cuts are made in other EU expenditures; calls on the members states to develop and agree on a repayment plan out of new own resources without damaging the new MFF;
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 35 a (new)
Paragraph 35 a (new)
35 a. 34a. Calls on the Court of Auditors to: (i) differentiate the types of errors and to make more transparent the rate of errors caused by severe misuse, fraud or other criminal activities and the errors caused by administrative oversight or inaccurate application of rules; (ii) to assess more intensively also the quality, the European added value, the sustainability, the performance and the practicability of the implemented projects;
Amendment 107 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 – point i
Paragraph 36 – point i
(i) continue its discussionsengage with the Court in order to increase understanding and, convergence of the way both deal with theand comparability of the two approaches to address irregularities;
Amendment 121 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 – point vi a (new)
Paragraph 36 – point vi a (new)
(vi a) ensure the protection of the Union budget by making general and systematic use of digital and automated systems for reporting, monitoring and audit and urgently establish a compulsory integrated and interoperable system building on, but not limited to, existing tools and databases in the context of the concluded revision of the Financial Regulation; modify and improve the Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard as well as the respective Commission RRF website to ensure that the implementation, the performance and fulfilment of indicators are regularly updated, accurate and, clearly structured and transparent; outcome of the audit are transparent; ensure that all Member States use the systems and central registers to report on beneficial owners and final beneficiaries;
Amendment 125 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 42 a (new)
Paragraph 42 a (new)
42 a. Recalls the findings of the Court’s Special Report 09/2022 “Climate Spending in the 2014-2020 EU budget”; notes in addition the Court’s Special Report 26/2023 on the Performance monitoring framework in the RRF; concludes that the Court identified in both special reports issues with the method the Commission presents performance information, both in the MFF and the RRF; notes in particular that disclosure about shortcomings in the performance monitoring methodologies show weaknessesin particular because of mixing estimates with actual numbers of achieved results and realised projects or blending budgeted amounts with actually paid amounts; considers that performance data presented by the Commission should not include estimations but only figures of realised actions; remains worried about the Court’s finding that limited improvements are expected in the 2021- 2027 climate reporting; regrets that the Commission has not yet addressed weaknesses in the reported figures of their new methodology;
Amendment 131 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 49 – point i
Paragraph 49 – point i
(i) take over the suggestions of the European Parliament in its resolutions on own resources in order to ensure sufficient resources to repay the investments made under NGEU;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 55
Paragraph 55
55. Notes that quantifiable errors relating to ineligible costs represent 98 % of the Court’s estimated level of error of 2,7 % in 2022; notes with concern, in particular, that the rules for declaring personnel costs under Horizon 2020 remain complex and that their calculation remains a significant source of error (67 % of the estimated error level in 2022); notes that the Commission has developed and promotes the use of the ‘Personnel Costs Wizard’ to help beneficiaries to declare their personnel costs correctly;
Amendment 135 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 57
Paragraph 57
57. Notes the remarks made by the Director-General for Research and Innovation in his discharge hearing that the Commission intends to increase the disbursement of Horizon Europe funds through lump sums from 2 % in 2022 to 50 % in 2027; notes, in that context, the Court’s specific review of the Commission’s procedures and guidance on lump-sum funded grants in research; notes the Commission’s statement that the level of scrutiny in terms of economy, efficiency and effectiveness is higher in the evaluation of lump-sum proposals; emphasises the need to check the actual implementation of projects using lump sums;
Amendment 136 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 58
Paragraph 58
58. Stresses the crucial role of the private sector in addressing the innovation gap in the Union and improving Union competitiveness and growth; believes, in particular, that it is imperative to keep promoting and facilitating as much as possible the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Union R&I funding programmes; notes the Court’s conclusion that SMEs and newcomers are more prone to errors than other beneficiaries, since they lack the experience and resources to administer the funds, and welcomes the efforts made by the Commission to specifically support them, for example through information campaigns, contacts with the system of National Contact Points and the dedicated helpdesk of the Research Enquiry Service; considers that the simplification of rules and procedures are the most important driver for increased participation of SMEs;
Amendment 138 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 59
Paragraph 59
59. Notes that the R&I Family Fraud Risk Assessment was updated in 2022 as work preceding the 2023 update of the Common Anti-Fraud Strategy; notes the drafting and adoption in 2022 of the ‘Guidance on Horizon Europe ex-ante anti- fraud checks’, which is part of the Horizon Europe ex-ante control strategy; notes that the main forum of the R&I Family on anti- fraud matters is the committee for Fraud and Irregularities in Research (FAIR Committee)), that met two times in 2022; notes that DG RTD also updated its Anti- fraud Strategy in 2022; considers that a zero-tolerance policy for fraud is also necessary in the area of research; in light of the ongoing simplification efforts it is important to guarantee that all European grants and subsidies benefit the projected goals and to develop effective tools to identify fraud and fraud patterns in the context of lump sums; notes that one important element to avoid fraudulent misuse is the referral of respective cases to the Early Detection and Exclusion panel;
Amendment 139 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 61
Paragraph 61
61. Welcomes the role of the ERC in supporting top researchers in Europe, which is underlined by numerous awards, including 14 Nobel Prizes, 6 Fields Medals and 11 Wolf Prizes; welcomes the 2 300 patent applications and 400 spin-off companies generated thanks to ERC projects; stresses the independence and autonomy of the ERC when fulfilling its role to support excellent research in the Union; recalls that the ERC requires a unique set-up to host ERCEA staff, the ERC Scientific Council and the experts responsible for the panel evaluations and that this configuration is indispensable for its work; is astonished by the Commission's plan to move several executive agencies and the ERCEA into new buildings without proper consultation and their agreement, while disregarding their actual office needs and thus endangering business continuity; highlights that even some Commission services were not adequately informed about these plans; stresses that the ERCEA has the right to sign lease contracts on its own and without the Commission's approval to maintain its extraordinary business model; underlines that the Commission must plan and collaborate with the ERCEA in good time to find suitable office spaces that fulfil their requirements and do not endanger their activities;
Amendment 143 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 66 – point i a (new)
Paragraph 66 – point i a (new)
(i a) continue to simplify rules and procedures in line with the new financial regulation, to support training sessions and practical information for applicants in member states, in particular for SMEs, spin-offs, start-ups, regional NGOs or local action groups;
Amendment 144 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 66 – point v a (new)
Paragraph 66 – point v a (new)
(v a) increase awareness, coherence, and sustainability of the support to SME internationalisation;
Amendment 145 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 66 – point v b (new)
Paragraph 66 – point v b (new)
(v b) check the actual implementation of projects using lump sums;
Amendment 146 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 66 – point v c (new)
Paragraph 66 – point v c (new)
(v c) report to the discharge authority: a. how many cases of suspected fraud have been referred by the competent Commission departments to the EDES panel, for what exclusion grounds, and how many of these cases have resulted in 1. an early detection decision, 2. an exclusion decision of the panel; b. for how long entities have been excluded from participation in EU funds; c. if any of the excluded entities has received EU funds after the exclusion decision had ended;
Amendment 147 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 69
Paragraph 69
69. Takes note that the absorption rate for cohesion policy funds under the programming period 2014-2020 reached 79,2 % at the end of 2022 (86 % at the end of 2023, including newly added Recovery assistance for cohesion and the territories of Europe (REACT-EU) in 2021-2022), having a similar level at the same point in time as in the period 2007-2013; is concerned that this level of absoption was only achieved through a temporary 100% EU co-financing rate waiving any requirement for national co-financing of projects that have been a long-established principle of EU finances; notes that the 2014-2020 programmes account for over 1 million projects and that so far, they have supported 2,4 million businesses, created 370 000 new jobs, increased the energy performance of more than 540 000 households, created 6 000 megawatts of new renewable energy sources and that 6,3 million households benefited from broadband; notes that absorption in 2022 improved for a large part because of CRII, CRII+, CARE, and FAST-CARE for the purpose of crisis response, diminishing projects to support the structural cohesion objectives of creating convergence and cohesion in the EU;
Amendment 149 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 71
Paragraph 71
71. Notes that the Court has examined a sample of 260 transactions covering the full range of spending under MFF Heading 2; notes with concern that the Court’s estimated overall level of error in ‘Cohesion, resilience and values’ in 2022 whas steeply increased to 6,4 %, which is significantly above the materiality threshold; notes that the Court estimated overall level of error of 6.4% has already taken into account corrections with a total value of 618 million Euros applied by member states in 2022; draws attention to the marked increase in the overall level of error estimated by the Court in 2022 compared to previous years (3,6 % in 2021, 3,5 % in 2020) while the Commission estimates the payment risk for 2022 to be between 1,9 % and 2,7 %, remaining stable compared to previous years (1,9 %-2,5 % in 2021, 2,1 %-2,6 % in 2020); draws attention to the Court’s report that a majority of errors were made in expenditure originating from CRII and CRII+;
Amendment 152 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 72
Paragraph 72
72. NotesIs concerned about the Court’s observation that approaching the end of the eligibility period for 2014-2020 programmes (31 December 2023) added absorption pressure and that during the COVID-19 period, the effectiveness of the checks and verifications by managing and audit authorities may have been reduced, potentially increasing the risk of undetected errors and irregularities; takes note that the Commission acknowledges that the specific situation and flexibilities given during COVID-19 may have played a role in the risk of irregularities due to the need to find alternative (remote) ways to control expenditure; stresses, however, that according to the Commission the risks and irregularities identified are rather linked to the type of actions implemented during the COVID-19 period or to the implementation or understanding of the flexibility introduced in public procurement rules;
Amendment 153 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 73
Paragraph 73
73. Notes the Court’s explanations that its error rate refers to the share of expenditure declared, for which it considers that the conditions for payment set out in Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 (‘the Financial Regulation’)5 , the CPR and in Directive (EU) 2017/1371 on the protection of the Union’s financial interests (‘PIF Directive’)6 have not been fully met, leading to a direct and measurable financial impact on the payment amount authorised at the time from the Union budget; takes note of the Court’s clarification that the error rate should not be interpreted as being equivalent to the potential amount of financial corrections the Commission can impose in accordance with the applicable rules; _________________ 5 OJ L 193, 30.7.2018, p. 1 6 OJ L 198, 28.7.2017, p. 29–41considers that the high error rate indicates a waste of resources, in particular in cohesion policy, where many managing authorities are confronted with the parallel implementation of the RRF;
Amendment 155 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 74
Paragraph 74
74. Notes that in the annual activity reports, the Commission reports error ratesthe risk of payment, for each programme and overall for the funds, that strictly refer to irregularities leading to financial corrections; notes that to impose financial corrections, the Commission needs to conclude that an irregularity within the meaning of the Article 2(36) of the CPR has occurred, while not all formal breaches and errors included by the Court as quantifiable errors in its estimated error rate lead to ineligible expenditure because they do not qualify as an irregularity as defined in Article 2(36) of the CPR; notes that it is helpful for the discharge authority to have a managerial perspective on errors identified;
Amendment 157 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 76
Paragraph 76
76. Notes with concern that the Court identified an increase in the specific types of errors, such as ineligible costs and projects and infringements of internal market rules, including public procurement and state aid rules, which are the same categories of irregularities identified by the Commission and the audit authorities based on their common typology; notes that 3 % of the Court’s estimated 6,4 % error rate in Heading 2 is related to 100 % co-financed priorities under the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII+) which allowed for more flexible spending; reiterates that more flexibility should never lead to compromising quality and controls; asks for a review from the Commission of the current situation in order to avoid similar situations in the future; notes that the Commission has not found audit evidence of a significant impact overall of the new types of measures and flexibilities introduced on the programme error rates and takes note of the fact thdespite the increased error rate the Commission claimed it took measures to prevent such risk;
Amendment 162 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 77
Paragraph 77
77. Takes note that for ERDF and CF, the Commission implemented financial corrections and withdrawals amounting to EUR 11 billion over the programming period, including EUR 2,4 billion for the accounting year 2021-2022; notes that these financial corrections so far have not resulted in any loss of funding for member states as the Commission has not yet implemented any net financial correction in the 2014-2020 period; notes further that the Commission plans to continues the implementation of its targeted ‘action plan on public procurement’ in cooperation with Member States;
Amendment 163 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 79
Paragraph 79
79. Notes that complementarity characterises the relation between the cohesion policy funds and the other Union funding instruments; recalls that compete with one another; recalls that, although in theory, the cohesion policy funds and the RRF are different in terms of general objectives, timeline, management mode and financing, butcurrent experience shows that several RRPs foresee investments which would have been eligible for financing under cohesion policy; questions in this respect the added value of such RRPs; highlights that complementarity between themcohesion and RRF is possible and expected, provided the same costs are not covered twice and that the RRF brings real added value;underlines that the risk of overlaps will increase towards the end of the RRF lifetime;
Amendment 165 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 80
Paragraph 80
80. Notes that the Commission is closely monitoring the situation, in particular when RRF national coordinating authorities are the same as for cohesion policy funds, and insisted on having sufficient additional administrative capacity and human resources allocated to the different strands of Union funding; nevertheless, is concerned that this parallelism may lead to unidentified cases of double funding; calls on the Commission to draw lessons from the experiences out of two different funding models;
Amendment 167 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 81
Paragraph 81
81. Welcomes that neither the Court nor the Commission identify any cases where the obligatory national co-funding of a cohesion project was paid for by RRF funds in the 2022 RRF disbursements; urges the Commission to continue to monitor the situation and prevent such financing to happen;
Amendment 169 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 82
Paragraph 82
82. Notes that the Court considers that the Commission’s desk reviews and compliance audits have inherent limitations in confirming the validity of the residual total error rates reported by audit authorities; takes note of the Commission’s replymmission’s considers that its assessment, based on a combination of desk and on-the- spot audit work covering the different individual programmes and assurance packages, enables it to establish a reasonable and fair estimate of the error rates for each programme, every year, and cumulatively for cohesion policy funds; however is concerned that the Court considers that the Commission’s desk reviews and compliance audits have inherent limitations in confirming the validity of the residual total error rates reported by audit authorities; notes that these weaknesses also affect the Commission’s estimated risk at closure, as the Commission may not in all cases carry out the necessary corrections to bring the residual error rate below materiality;
Amendment 175 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 84
Paragraph 84
84. Is concerned about the persistent shortcomings observed by the Court in the national audits, which can be due to inadequate scope, unclear documentation of audits and sample filtering performed by national audit authorities, as well as resource issues, including inadequate funding and a lack of a skilled workforce within national audit authorities; notes that the Commission considers the work of the majority of the audit authorities to be reliable and that only 7 out of 81 audit authorities need serious improvementsurt has observed a marked increase in shortcomings in the scope, quality and documentation of audit authorities’ work; stresses its concern that the Court observed weaknesses in a wide range, for example concerning the audit authorities’ work on verifying eligibility of expenditure, including cases where that the audit authority did not carry out sufficient checks on information provided by beneficiaries on the eligibility of projects, on the compliance with internal market rules and on the risk of fraud and conflict of interest;
Amendment 179 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 85
Paragraph 85
85. Notes the Court’s finding that, as a way to simplify expenditure, beneficiaries of cohesion policy funding used SCOs for 77 transactions, or 30% of its sample, applying either flat rates, standard sales of unit costs or a combination of both; stresses that SCOs are one of the most important measures to reduce administrative costs and burdens for the beneficiaries and thus, to facilitate the access of small beneficiaries to the funding and focus more on the achievement of the objectives while reducing the error rate; highlights that the Court considers that SCO’s are not always adequately implemented and shares the Court’s audit conclusion that SCOs should not result in an excessive financial benefit for a member state; on the other side SCO should in practice lead to real reductions of bureaucratic burden and not to an exhaustive ex-ante and ex-post control; notes that slight variations of prices in SCO estimates compared to the prices identified during ex-post controls should be acceptable;
Amendment 180 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 86
Paragraph 86
86. Notes that, for 2021-2027 programmes, the Commission has encouraged the use by programme authorities of the simplification measures foreseen under the CPR, in particular, the use of SCOs and financing not linked to costs (FNLC) schemes to tackle eligibility issues, ease management verifications and control the burden on beneficiaries; notes that, as a result of this effort, for the ERDF and the CF for example, 120 SCO schemes at programme level were adopted so far in 11 Member States and for Interreg programmes (EUR 5,7 billion of total contribution) as well as 4 FNLC schemes in 4 Member States (for EUR 1,2 billion of total contribution); underlines that urgently further simplification and flexibility is needed; calls on the Commission to find the right balance between necessary flexibility for slight price variations and on the other sider inappropriate intentional cost and price overestimations;
Amendment 181 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 86 a (new)
Paragraph 86 a (new)
86 a. Is worried by the Court’s finding regarding an ERDF programme in Slovakia aimed at renovating a public building’s interior space, despite the fact that under that program only energy- efficiency measures were eligible; notes the Court’s observation that this project should not have passed the evaluation phase, as in the application the threshold of at least 25 % of the expenditure for the project linked to energy efficiency was not met; notes similar cases identified by the Court that lack a Commission response;
Amendment 185 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point i
Paragraph 89 – point i
(i) continue its cooperation with the Court in order to look for possible comparability ofalign the results of their estimated error rates, as well as to align the interpretation of legal texts;
Amendment 187 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point i a (new)
Paragraph 89 – point i a (new)
(i a) improve and strengthen Member States' management and control system to ensure member states declare only eligible expenditure to the Commission;
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point ii
Paragraph 89 – point ii
(ii) pay particular attention in its audits to the risks linked to the flexibilities introduced with the CRII/CRII+ amendments; launch an immediate review of spending under these programmes to identify and correct systemic issues which have led to an abrupt increase of the error rate;
Amendment 196 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point vi
Paragraph 89 – point vi
(vi) work, in order to achieve a successful uptake of SCOs, in parallel with all stakeholders, on methodological and assurance harmonisation so that there is sufficient predictability for the beneficiaries on how those options are expected to be implemented; and ensure that audits do not lead to further bureaucratisation of implementation and an unnecessary audit burden on beneficiaries; ensure SCO are not implemented in a way that Member States gain excessive financial benefit, while guaranteeing an appropriate flexibility in the cost and price estimations;
Amendment 197 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point vii
Paragraph 89 – point vii
(vii) work together with Member States' audit authorities to ensure that the specific risk of double funding, especially with the RRF financing, is well covered byreduced by adequate national controls and audits; insists that the Commission performs thematic or compliance audits tailored to target high- risk areas and Member States; and
Amendment 198 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point viii
Paragraph 89 – point viii
(viii) establish a comprehensive mechanism for the use of cohesion funds in the event of exceptional or unforeseen circumstances using guiding provisions on its scope, funding availability, governance, audit and control, and application; underlines that such use for exceptional circumstances should be restricted to specific and well defined situations, limited in time and scope and with an increased degree of controls to mitigate risks;
Amendment 199 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point viii a (new)
Paragraph 89 – point viii a (new)
(viii a) calls on the Commission to re- assess its decision to “unfreeze” 10.2 billion EUR of cohesion funds to Hungary, particularly in light of the national measures taken since its adoption, and to refrain from disbursing any funds until all of the relevant legislation has been fully implemented and the adopted measures have proven their effectiveness in practice;
Amendment 200 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point viii b (new)
Paragraph 89 – point viii b (new)
(viii b) make the use of IT tools such as EDES and ARACHNE mandatory and systematic for all Union funds including shared management and ensure better use of new technology in order to increase controls and protect the Union budget against fraud and misuse of funds in the context of the concluded revision of the Financial Regulation;
Amendment 201 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point viii d (new)
Paragraph 89 – point viii d (new)
(viii d) report on the early preventive system audits (EPSA) performed at the beginning of the programming period, in order to confirm the effectiveness of the control systems in the Member States, including the system in place to prevent irregularities;
Amendment 202 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point viii f (new)
Paragraph 89 – point viii f (new)
(viii f) report to the discharge authority how the use of flexibility measures in Cohesion policy, that have improved absorption, has affected the structural cohesion objectives of convergence and cohesion;
Amendment 203 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 89 – point viii g (new)
Paragraph 89 – point viii g (new)
(viii g) match the Court’s findings concerning Member States’ declarations with the information coming from the Commission’s risk at payment and risk at closure exercise on managing authorities to identify error hotspots that need to be addressed with urgency;
Amendment 211 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 99
Paragraph 99
99. Notes that SCOs are applied across the CAP, including in rural development where eligibility conditions are more complex and the risk of error is higher, and that there is still potential to simplify measures that are not based on area or animal declarations, where Member States can decide whether to reimburse actual costs or pay according to predefined outputs; notes that the Commission reports almost 92 % of Rural Development Programmes make use of SCOs; calls on the Commission to disclose the amount disbursed through SCOs;
Amendment 213 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 101
Paragraph 101
101. Welcomes the increased interest in and use of the integrated IT tool for data mining ARACHNE by the Member States, with 13 Member States using the tool for at least some measures, and five Member States participating in a general introduction workshop on ARACHNE; notes the obstacles reported by Member States and the continued efforts of the Commission to improve ARACHNE; regrets the selective adoption of ARACHNE by Member States;
Amendment 216 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 104 – point iii a (new)
Paragraph 104 – point iii a (new)
(iii a) continue to promote the use of ARACHNE to increase both the number of Member States using the system, and to increase the extent of use to include all programmes in the context of the concluded revision of the Financial Regulation;
Amendment 218 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 104 – point v a (new)
Paragraph 104 – point v a (new)
(v a) make better use and encourage the use of AI and data from new technologies such as the Union owned Copernicus Sentinel satellites to monitor and control the correct use of CAP funds;
Amendment 219 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 105
Paragraph 105
105. Notes that the budget for the programmes under MFF heading 4 ‘Migration and Border Management’ was EUR 3,4 billion (1,7 % of the Union budget) distributed as follows: 43,9 % for the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), 23,1 % for the Integrated Border Management Fund (IBMF) and 33 % for three decentralised agencies: European Boarder Coast Agency (FRONTEX), European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) and European Union Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (EU- LISA); notes that, as of 31 December 2022, the final budget commitment appropriations adopted amounted to EUR 3 410,39 million and 99,54 % of them had been implemented (EUR 3 394,69 million); notes further that the final adopted budget payment appropriations amounted to EUR 3 372,54 million and 97,61 % of them have been implemented (EUR 3 292,03 million);
Amendment 243 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 127
Paragraph 127
127. Notes that, following the despicable terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel on 7 October 2023, the Commission announced on 9 October 2023 its decision to review the Union’s assistance for Palestine; welcomes that the review, finalised on 21 November 2023, has shown that the Commission has ex- ante and ex-post controls, and a system of safeguards in placetha; is extremely concerned about reports that EU taxpayers’ money and funds of other donors were misused by Hamas, instead of benefitting the Palestinian civilian population; is shocked about UN statements on UNRWA employees being involved in acts of terror; is deeply concerned that the Commission did not act after multiple warnings by Parliament in 2022 about EU funds being misused by terrorist work well and that no evidence has been found to date that money has been diverted for unintended purposes; highlights, furthermore, that according to the Commission’s reply, the current rules in tender procedures and calls for proposals “make the participation of entities, individuals or groups affiliated with terrorist organisations categorically incompatible with any Unionganisations; urges the Commission to insist on controls and audits of UNRWA conducted by ECA, the Internal Audit Service, EU appointed independent external experts, and experienced international partners such as Global Affairs Canada; asks the Commission to use other trusted partners such as the WHO, UNICEF or the Egyptian Red Crescent in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan for delivering funds and help to Palestinian civilians and refugees; asks the Commission to keep Parliament informed about new developments and efforts undertaken to provide direct suuport to Palestinian civilians and refugees and to prevent terrorist from diverting funding”s;
Amendment 267 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 138
Paragraph 138
138. Notes that the new central corporate financial system of the Commission, SUMMA, was planned to go into production by the end of 2023 and had progressed in line with the objective of going live at the beginning of 2024; noteregrets that the deadline for implementing the new accounting system was extended by one year because implementing the connections of operational programmes (shared management, e-grants, e-procurement, staff payments) with SUMMA simultaneously has proven to be a more complex exercise than expected; stresses with concern that the cost of the SUMMA programme since its inception at the beginning of 2018 until the end of 2022 was around EUR 95 million and that its timeline extension will require additional resources in 2024, estimated at around EUR 7 million euro;
Amendment 273 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 140
Paragraph 140
140. Notes with satisfaction that the Court, in its Annual Report on the accounts for the European Schools for the 2022 financial year, found no material errors in the final consolidated annual accounts of the European Schools for 2022; welcomes further improvements highlighted by the Court in the quality of the final individual and consolidated accounts compared to previous years;
Amendment 281 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 149
Paragraph 149
149. Recalls that, under NGEU, the Commission can raise up to EUR 806,9 billion between mid-2021 and 2026 through the issuance of EU-bonds; notes that in June 2022, the Commission announced a funding plan for the period June to end-December 2022 and raised an additional EUR 50 billion in long-term funding for NGEU, complemented by short-term EU-bills issuances, bringing the total outstanding amount of NGEU bonds to EUR 171 billion, of which EUR 36,5 were raised by issuing green bonds; notes that this debt consists of borrowed amounts with different maturities, ranging from 1 year to more than 25 years; remarks that this means that even though repayment of NGEU debt will only start after 2030; notes with concern borrowed amounts need to be repaid and borrowing activities remain needed not only to raise new funds, but also to replace existing debt;
Amendment 283 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 150
Paragraph 150
150. Notes that, in 2020, an amount of EUR 14,9 billion was planned in the MFF 2021-2027 to cover the interest payments for NGEU non-repayable support; is concerned about the impact of the higher interest rates on the purchasing power of the Union budget, with the interest rates on 10-year EU-Bonds increasing from 0,09 % in 2021 to 3,2 % in 2023; expresses concern about the large amount of money that the Commission is borrowing in order to pay for the Recovery and Resilience Facility, is concerned in particular about the strong rise in the interest rates ; regrets that the Commission did not borrow important parts of the money designated for the RRF directly after the agreement between Parliament and Council was concluded, and at a time when interest rates were much lower; notes the Commission’s statement that the Union will meet its obligations towards bondholders in all circumstances and its proposal for a technical modification to the MFF to optimise the budgetary treatment of NGEU borrowing costs; requests that the Commission provide more information to the European Parliament on how repayment will be made and from which institutions funds are being borrowed; emphasizes that this debt burdens the EU budget;
Amendment 284 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151
Paragraph 151
151. WelcomNotes that the RRF expenditure in 2022 isCourt issued a qualified opinion on the legality and regular in all material aspects, except for the effects of the quantitative findings in 11 payments and the material error in 6 payments estimated by the Court, which are the basis for its qualified opinion concerning the RRF expenditure; notes that the nature of the RRF spending model relies on the judgements to be made by the Commission and thus,ity of the RRF expenditure in 2022; is concerned that the Court identified that 11 out of the 13 RRF payments were affected by quantitative findings and that 6 of these payments were affected by material error; finds it worrisome that the Court considers the number of errors in RRF expenditure to be close to the materiality threshold, notes that the Court does not provide an error rate but estimates the minimum financial impact of its findings to be below, but close to the materiality threshold;
Amendment 286 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151 a (new)
Paragraph 151 a (new)
151 a. Reminds that RRF funds, according to the RRF regulation (EU) 2021/241, article 5, paragraph 1, shall not be used to finance recurring budgetary expenditure; is particularly concerned about the Court’s observation regarding one target which represents a substitution of recurring national budgetary expenditure; calls for adequate measures to be taken, including through a strict enforcement of the option of partial payments;
Amendment 287 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151 b (new)
Paragraph 151 b (new)
151 b. Further expects that actions are taken by the Commission to address concrete instances of reversal or milestones and targets in the RRP of some member states and takes note with concern about the reported cases of such reversals; urges the Commission to strictly apply the provisions of the Regulation and the adopted guidelines;
Amendment 288 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151 c (new)
Paragraph 151 c (new)
151 c. Is concerned about the Court’s observation of persisting weaknesses in the set-up and functioning of member state control systems and urges the Commission and national authorities to address them swiftly; recalls that such weaknesses put at risk the sound financial management of RRF funding; reminds the Commission and Member States that according to the RRF Regulation, the non-fulfilment of milestones or targets related to a Member State’s audit and control system that were necessary for complying with Article 22 of the RRF Regulation may lead to the suspension of the full instalment and all future instalments; calls on an adequate and equal application of this provision for all member states;
Amendment 289 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 152
Paragraph 152
152. Notes that the Court audited 244 out of 274 milestones and all 37 targets included in 2022 payment requests for grants; notes that the Court considerregrets that 15 of them were affected by regularity issues (below 5 % of the total); notes that the Court considers that, regrets that although the requirements had not been satisfactorily fulfilled for 8 M&Ts , the corresponding 8 payments have still been made; notes that the Court’'s conclusions are based on itextensive audit work and that the Commission contests the Court's interpretation of the legal requirements set by the Council or qualitative judgements different from the Commission; notes that all the RRF payments armust be assessed against the framework communicated and applied by the Commission, whoand must also takes into consideration for each payment the opintion of the Economic and Financial Committee and the scrutiny by Member State experts under the comitology procedure;
Amendment 290 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 152 a (new)
Paragraph 152 a (new)
152 a. Recalls the Court’s observations in Special Reports 21/2022 and 7/2023 that milestones and targets measure outputs rather than results; urges the Commission to ensure that the future design of instruments based on financing linked to costs shall also measure results and not only outputs; stresses that the mere completion of projects financed by the RRF funds do not guarantee a positive economic and social impact as well as quality and sustainability;
Amendment 292 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 152 b (new)
Paragraph 152 b (new)
152 b. Recalls the Court’s observation in Special Report 21/2022 and its Annual Report for 2021 that milestones and targets often lack clarity and are not well defined and that the Court makes the same observation in its annual report 2022; calls on the Commission to draw on lessons learned when designing future performance based instruments;
Amendment 293 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 152 c (new)
Paragraph 152 c (new)
152 c. Is worried by the Court’s findings in SR 26/2023 that milestones and targets vary in ambition between Member States and considers this is yet another example where the Commission does not treat member states equally; notes that the Commission confirmed the differences and will try to enhance equal treatment during the implementation phase; considers that Member States by default should be treated equally and regrets this has not been the case when negotiating the RRPs; insists that equal treatment should be ensured when evaluating the completion of milestones and targets;
Amendment 295 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 153
Paragraph 153
153. Notes with concern that the Court considers thatidentified a case of double funding occurred in 2022, even though the measure in question does not have any costs attached to it under the RRF; notes the Commission’s observation that, according to the RRF Regulation, ‘double funding’ is explicitly linked to costs and thus, there can be no 'double funding' if the Member State has not submitted any cost estimate as part of its national plan; notes that the Commission underlines that reforms are essential criteria for the Commission's positive assessment of RRPs, but that the inclusion of no-cost reforms does not increase their financial envelope, although in this way the plans ensure their effective and timely implementation;
Amendment 296 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 154
Paragraph 154
154. Notes that the Court also identified several cases of weak design in M&Ts and problems with the reliability of information that Member States included in their management declarations, although the effects of those findings are considered material but not pervasive by the Court; notes that the Commission agrees to review M&Ts provided there is a legal justification to change the elements of a Council Implementing Decision, namely that a Member State submits an amended plan and a legal basis justifies the changes;
Amendment 301 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 156
Paragraph 156
156. Welcomes the systematic and comprehensive audit work of the Court regarding the RRF, with emphasis on the protection of the Union’s financial interests, which is providinges a thorough analysis of the relevant aspects of the Facility and valuable insight into its implementation; notes with satisfaction that the Commission broadly accepts and applies the Court’s recommendations and acknowledges that many of the issues identified by the Court are related to the legal basis of the RRF and linked to its innovative nature and functioning; considers that the Court’s recommendations stemming from its audit work on the RRF are particularly relevant to the co-legislators for future Union performance-based financing instruments;
Amendment 302 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 156 a (new)
Paragraph 156 a (new)
156 a. Appreciates the Special Report 26/2023: ‘the Recovery and Resilience Facility’s performance promoting framework-measuring implementation progress but not sufficient to capture performance’ in highlighting some of the drawbacks of using a performance-based framework, in particular when trying to quantify results; requests the Commission applies lessons learnt from the Court’s observations in this special report when designing future performance-based frameworks;
Amendment 305 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158
Paragraph 158
158. Welcomes that, based on the Court’s recommendations and the experience gained, the Commission presented its methodologies on (i) assessing the satisfactory fulfilment of M&Ts, (ii) calculating the suspended amounts in case of non-fulfilment of a milestone or target, and (iii) dealing with potential situations where M&Ts initially assessed as satisfactorily fulfilled by the Commission were subsequently reversed by the Member State; welcomes that the Commission accepts the recommendation to carry out a revision of its ex-post audit procedures to verify the potential reversal of targets after the payment, although is particularly concerned that the methodology does not provide legal clarity in case a milestone or target is reversed after the implementation period of the RRF once all payments have been made;
Amendment 307 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158 e (new)
Paragraph 158 e (new)
158 e. Expresses concern that there is no provision that addresses the reversal of milestones and targets after the last date for payments from the RRF, 31 December 2026 or after the last payment in an RRP in general, particularly because some of the most important milestones and targets included in RRPs are to be fulfilled in the last part of the RRF lifetime; expresses concern that the Commission is dependent on the Member States to identify any of the mentioned reversals; recommends that the Commission communicate more actively with Member States to proactively identify any reversals of targets and milestones; calls on the Commission to present a methodology that addresses both omissions;
Amendment 308 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158 a (new)
Paragraph 158 a (new)
158 a. Emphasises the need for the Commission to pay more attention to reversal of milestones, in particular in the area of rule of law; highlights the recent case of a potential reversal of two milestones concerning the rule of law in Slovakia (15.5 “Fighting corruption and strengthening the integrity and independence of the judiciary” and milestone 16.1 “ Reform on making the fight against corruption and anti-money laundering more effective”, Annex of the Council Implementing Decision); observes that rule of law milestones and targets are particularly vulnerable to arbitrary governmental decisions; notes that 12 national recovery and resilience plans contain rule of law or anti- corruption reforms in their milestones and targets; urges the Commission to actively follow and collect information on the reversal of rule of law milestones and targets and to actively discuss financial consequences as laid out in the RRF regulation;
Amendment 309 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158 b (new)
Paragraph 158 b (new)
158 b. Notes that the framework for assessing milestones and targets lacks explanations, i.a. the reasons why the verification mechanism and monitoring steps as described in the operational arrangement should not be considered for the assessment;
Amendment 310 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158 c (new)
Paragraph 158 c (new)
158 c. 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;
Amendment 311 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158 d (new)
Paragraph 158 d (new)
158 d. 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 314 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 159 a (new)
Paragraph 159 a (new)
159 a. Recalls that the Council adopted the Hungarian recovery and resilience plan based on the Commission’s positive evaluation; notes that compared to the original plan, a whole new component of measures was added containing 38 measures with 11 milestones and targets, regrets that pre-financing under the RRF is not subject to a procedure under the conditionality mechanism;
Amendment 316 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 159 b (new)
Paragraph 159 b (new)
159 b. Notes the efforts of the Commission to raise funds on the financial markets to provide the financial means for the RRF; notes that interest rates have risen sharply in 2022 and that Commission AAA borrowing costs are higher than Member States with a lower rating, is concerned by the resulting debts, the rising interest rates and the resulting uncertain capacity to repay the loans; notes however that we have 90 billion Euros less debt than initially forecasted;
Amendment 317 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161
Paragraph 161
161. Notes that the Commission reports that the achievement of M&Ts is broadly on track, after the first year of the RRF's functioning was more focused on the necessary reforms to build the framework for subsequent investment projects to have a higher impact; notes that the Commission reports delays compared to the indicative calendar of payments, due to the process of revising the RRPs in the context of the REPowerEU Plan and implementation challenges Member States are facing, such as administrative capacity issues, investment bottlenecks, and consequences of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, including the energy crisis, unexpected price shocks, shortages of certain materials and high inflation; calls on the Commission to remain vigilant, in particular towards the end of the RRF lifecycle, in order to ensure that Member States protect the financial interests of the EU and that EU taxpayers’ money is adequately spent; points out that, in particular, the countering of fraud, corruption, conflicts of interest (defined as ‘serious irregularities’) and double funding should receive appropriate resources and attention; notes that the Commission is supporting all Member States in accelerating the implementation and revision of their plans, including through the Technical Support Instrument; is concerned that according to the Commission’s RRF 2023 implementation report, 8 Member States have not yet submitted any payment request to the Commission;
Amendment 320 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161 a (new)
Paragraph 161 a (new)
161 a. Emphasises that one of the drivers of the creation of the Resilience and Recovery Facility was a lack of resilience and preparedness that became apparent during the Corona Pandemic to have severe weaknesses; the crisis response capacity of healthcare systems across EU member states is clearly mentioned inarticles 6, 10, 15, 16 and 28 of Regulation 2021/241 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility; highlights that according to Article 3, Scope, of the RRF Regulation 2021/241, health is one of the six pillars of the RRF; regrets that overall only a few milestones and targets cover health aspects or the strengthening of the health systems in member countries; notes that some country national recovery plans do not even have a health-related milestone or target or have ones that are only vaguely related to health and do not contribute to strengthening the health or hospital system; urges the Commission to strengthen milestones and targets related to preparedness and resilience in the health sector where possible when revising national recovery and resilience plans with member states; notes that eight indicators in the RRF Regulation Annex VI cover health, including those covering e-health services, health infrastructure, health equipment, health mobile assets, digitalisation in health care, effectiveness and resilience of healthcare systems and several others; asks the Commission to report to the CONT Committee in autumn;
Amendment 324 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161 b (new)
Paragraph 161 b (new)
161 b. Notes that very little emphasis is placed on resilience or added-value in contributing to resilience when milestones and targets are emphasized; urges the Commission to create a ‘contribution to resilience’ indicator for the RRF scoreboard and to tabulate impact in the areas of resilience; further urges the Commission to consider contribution to resilience when considering new milestones and targets that are introduced into revised national recovery and resilience plans; encourages the Court to look more closely at RRF impact of resilience in all the pillars in a future study;
Amendment 325 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161 c (new)
Paragraph 161 c (new)
161 c. Emphasises that when reviewing revised national recovery plans, the Commission should still diligently apply the ‘Assessment guidelines for the Facility’ as outlined in Annex V of the Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, which includes the Commission to assess and rate national recovery and resilience plans under the criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and coherence (article 19(3)), as well as coverage of the six pillars, namely a) green transition, b) digital transformation, c) smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, d) social and territorial cohesion, e) health and economic, social and institutional resilience, f) policies for the next generation (Article 3); asserts that this is an important process to avoid revised national recovery plans that are much weaker than the original plans or that no longer fulfil the criteria;
Amendment 327 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161 d (new)
Paragraph 161 d (new)
161 d. Notes that the RRF should create synergies and measures implemented should lead to structural reforms that have added-value; is concerned that some countries have repackaged old national reforms into the national RRPs;
Amendment 328 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161 e (new)
Paragraph 161 e (new)
161 e. 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 national RRPs; calls for their involvement based on clear, fair, transparent and non-politicised principles, in the implementation of the national RRPs to the maximum extent possible under the national legislative framework;
Amendment 329 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 161 f (new)
Paragraph 161 f (new)
161 f. Calls on the Commission to ensure that Member States apply a zero-tolerance approach to corruption and fraud, including embezzlement without any exception;
Amendment 330 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 166 a (new)
Paragraph 166 a (new)
166 a. Notes that the Court found that concerning reporting on the common indicators, quality and underlying methodologies are not checked by national audit authorities in any visited member state; is astonished that in a member state the indicated planting of trees did not exist when ECA made an on- the-spot check; notes that the Commission does not require supporting evidence or explanations on the reported data, except in cases where estimates are reported; notes that the Court concludes that this poses a risk to data reliability and comparability across member states; concludes that data reliability in the absence of audits might affect the performance information reported on common indicators to a larger extent than information based on milestones and targets; considers this, given the issues identified in the milestones and targets by the Court, a worrying situation and calls on the Commission to improve its assurance on the reporting on common indicators; notes the differing practices among auditing authorities regarding the timing of the checks on the fulfilment of targets and reforms; believes that such checks should be better harmonised and should include a compulsory check on the reliability and accuracy of the data on milestones and targets before those milestones and targets are included in a payment request; points out the risks of an approach that uses mostly ex-post checks and calls on Member States to avoid such practices;
Amendment 331 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 166 b (new)
Paragraph 166 b (new)
166 b. Encourages more true cross border projects be implemented using RRF funds; is critical of the fact that some projects receiving RRF funds are listed by some countries as cross-border as soon as they reduce energy consumption or increase energy efficiency; considers that though reducing energy consumption may achieve some RRF climate goals (including 17 indicators in Annex VI for the Methodology for Climate Tracking in the Regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility), these projects should nevertheless not be considered cross- border if they do not include an actual cross-border geographical element;
Amendment 332 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 166 c (new)
Paragraph 166 c (new)
166 c. Notes that countries may be overwhelmed administratively with the transfer of large RRF funds and cohesion funds at the same time, points out that the sheer size of funds transferred can place a large administrative burden on member states, thus delaying implementation and potentially threatening transparency; is concerned by the fact that according to the EIB one member state appeared on a short notice with the wish to create a new EIB program for 20 billion within a short period of time because of problems of disbursement via the own administration; encourages Commission to actively communicate with member states about administrative capacities in handling the funds before making the transfer and to so thorough checks on the quality and necessity of projects; notes that the budgetary control committee was informed of many instances where member states felt overwhelmed administratively in this regard;
Amendment 333 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 166 d (new)
Paragraph 166 d (new)
166 d. Notes potential concerns about absorption of funds with high quality projects as pointed out in discussions in the budgetary control committee during presentations of the ECA Special Report to the budgetary control committee and as discussed in the RRF working group of the European Parliament; encourages the Commission to think of possible next steps and concrete measures and solutions to help member states to implement the projects in the foreseen timeline;
Amendment 334 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 166 e (new)
Paragraph 166 e (new)
166 e. Notes the risk of double funding between Cohesion and RRF Funds as pointed out in ECA Review 01/2023; encourages the Commission actively cross-check between databases to ensure double funding does not occur; encourages the Commission to proactively work together with member states in this regard;
Amendment 335 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 166 f (new)
Paragraph 166 f (new)
166 f. Expresses concerns regarding the Recovery and Resilience Fund: i. calls on the Commission to accurately list “final recipients” according to Article 22 2d) of Regulation (EU) 2021/241; ii. is concerned about an assurance and accountibility gap due partially to the time lapse between Milestones fulfilment and Project implementation; iii. calls on the Commission to act swiftly when reversals of milestones occur: to request the reinstallment of the fulfilment of the milestone, in case of refusal by the member state to partially block remaining funds in line with the methodology and to recover the corresponding funds; iv. criticises that in contradiction to the main goals of the facility the definition of “resilience” is insufficient to ameliorate the preparadeness of future crisis situations; v. is concerned that there is an absence of compliance audits by the Commission on RRF funded investment projects, despite the multiple warnings of ECA stating that many national management, payment and audit authorities are not fully functioning and therefore have potentially unreliable audits; vi. is concerned about the limited number of cross-border projects under the RRF, notes that many purely national projects are listed as cross-border projects as soon as they have energy saving or energy reducing elements; criticises the overestimation of the published number of cross-border projects as misleading; urges the Commission to change the methodology of categorisation of cross- border projects; urges that only projects with an real geographical cross-border component to be considered a cross- border project;
Amendment 337 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 167 a (new)
Paragraph 167 a (new)
167 a. Expresses concern about the Court’s finding in SR 07/2023 that reporting of fraud involving RRF funds lacks a standardised approach with strong coordination and cooperation between member states; asks the Commission to encourage Member states to align the reporting on fraud in a digital standardised way and to make use of the Irregularity Management System; calls on the Commission to report at an aggregated level on the cased of suspected fraud, corruption, and conflict of interests detected in its own audits, and by the Member States as reported in the management declarations; calls on the Commission to evaluate the information received, to consider its quality and to offer guidance to Member States if necessary; welcomes that the Commission has already adapted the Irregularity Management System so that the system can be used for the RRF by the competent national authorities for recording detected irregularities; notes the legal basis for using the IMS is in the Regulation (EU) 2021/241;
Amendment 338 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 167 b (new)
Paragraph 167 b (new)
167 b. Notes with concern, that EPPO’s responsibility in investigating crimes involving RRF funds is being put into question in 9 cases in a member state; notes that the European Court of Justice was asked via a preliminary question to give an opinion in one of these cases;
Amendment 339 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 167 c (new)
Paragraph 167 c (new)
167 c. Furthermore notes that cases involving RRF funds fall squarely into the Material Competence of the EPPO according to Chapter IV Competence and exercise of the competence of the EPPO, Section 1, Competence of the EPPO, Article 22, 1. “the EPPO shall be competent in respect of the criminal offences affecting the financial interest of the Union that are provided for in Directive (EU) 2017/1371, as implemented by national law, irrespective of whether the same criminal conduct could be classified as another type of offence under national law”, and in addition Article 23, Territorial and personal competence of the EPPO, “the EPPO shall be competent for the offences referred to Article 22 where such offences: a) were committed in whole or in part within the territory of one or several member states”; encourages the Commission to convey this member states;
Amendment 340 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 167 d (new)
Paragraph 167 d (new)
167 d. Implores the Commission to communicate more actively with Member States regarding fraud prevention;
Amendment 341 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 167 e (new)
Paragraph 167 e (new)
167 e. Encourages the Commission, EPPO and other relevant entities to cooperate intensively to identify fraud cases or crimes against the financial interest of the EU, to report possible patterns of fraud and other financial crimes; encourages the relevant entities on European and national level to strengthen cooperation and coordination in these cases to better protect taxpayers money; asks Member States to strengthen their capacities to uncover crimes in this area and to support a structured cooperation with the relevant European entities;
Amendment 342 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 167 f (new)
Paragraph 167 f (new)
167 f. Emphasises that the protection of the financial interests of the European Union is a top priority and that preventing fraudulent use of RRF Funds is part of this priority; asserts that more precise implementation and performance monitoring will help reduce or prevent fraud at an early stage; calls on the Commission to act accordingly;
Amendment 343 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 167 g (new)
Paragraph 167 g (new)
167 g. Emphasises that in particular rule of law and anti-corruption milestones and targets are at risk of being overturned as these milestones and targets are essential in hindering corrupt individuals, organisations. governments or criminal systems; urges the Commission to follow the fulfillment of rule of law and anti- corruption milestones and targets closely and to more actively report on reversals or possible reversals of milestones in this area;
Amendment 344 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 167 h (new)
Paragraph 167 h (new)
167 h. Is concerned that the information presented on the RRF Scoreboard concerning progress under the six pillars is misleading as for example the contribution of each measure is counted twice as pointed out in the ECA Special Report 26/2023; calls on the Commission to disclose for the current presented figures the limitations detected by the Court immediately, and to remedy the shortcomings; notes further as regards the RRF Scoreboard that the Court concluded in its Special Report 26/2023 that presented performance lacks transparency as regards inclusion of estimates and that aggregated information is not comparable; notes that transparency about limitations is of the utmost importance as lack of transparency calls into question what other limitations have not been disclosed and therefore affects the (perceived) reliability of all presented information; calls on the Commission to proactively present the assumptions and limitations of the presented data on the scoreboard;
Amendment 345 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 168
Paragraph 168
168. Notes that, following an explicit demand of the Parliament, the amended RRF Regulation requires Member States to publish information on the 100 final recipients receiving the highest amount of funding under the RRF; notes that all Member States but one have published the required list on the RRF Scoreboard and observes a large variety of the size of the payments both across the Member States and within each country, which is explained by the heterogeneous nature of RRPs; regrets the delays in the publication by Member States of the lists; expresses concern over the interpretation of the Commission of the concept of “final recipient” under the RRF; is furthermore concerned that the final recipients listed are often only at the ministry level and that the descriptions are extremely vague, for example where 573 million Euros were paid to the Slovakian Ministry of the Environment simply for ‘adaptation of regions to climate changes’, or where 19 million Euros were paid to the Interior Ministry of Bulgaria for construction of a relay network, with similar examples available in almost all final recipients lists in a total of more than 50 cases; calls on the Member States to publish the data collected to comply with Article 22(2)(d) of the original RRF Regulation on all final recipients and their beneficial owners, and eventual contractors and subcontractors; is concerned that otherwise it will be problematic to measure the impact and guarantee visibility of the RRF funds to the citizens when not even the Parliament and the Commission know where the money was spent;
Amendment 348 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 168 a (new)
Paragraph 168 a (new)
168 a. Expresses concern about the high number of RRF cases reported to EPPO after the first year of implementation, namely 15 active cases in EPPO related to RRF as reported in the EPPO Annual Report 2022; calls on the Commission to act in situations where several cases with certain patterns and indicators are occurring and to cooperate with OLAF and EPPO to inform about patterns of fraud, corruption and money laundering related to RRF; calls on the Commission to draw consequences for member states with too many cases of fraud including changes of the administrative procedures or, if necessary, freezing payments;
Amendment 349 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 169 a (new)
Paragraph 169 a (new)
169 a. Is concerned about reports from the Court regarding difficulties in accessing RRF data to perform its duties; urges the Commission to ensure full access to the Court to the relevant databases of member states and EU; urges the Commission to guarantee that data in the FENIX database are updated in a timely manner for the purposes of audit and control; underlines that data should be accurate and transmitted in a standardised format;
Amendment 350 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 169 b (new)
Paragraph 169 b (new)
169 b. Recommends when implementing performance-based instruments in the future, that milestones and targets are clearly defined and linked in a timely manner to avoid accountability gaps and that the measuring of outputs and results is possible; recommends for performance based instruments to create a clear and precise verification mechanism from the beginning; notes that this is crucial in the context of transparency and accountability to the EU taxpayer;
Amendment 351 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 169 c (new)
Paragraph 169 c (new)
169 c. Is concerned about transparency and accountability towards the public; urges that the Commission communicates with Member States about appropriate labelling of projects including reference that a project received Recovery and Resilience Funds; regrets following ECA report 2022 that even at the Commission level there is no clear oversight what specific projects RRF funds are supporting; underlines that the European taxpayer has the right to see what projects EU funds are supporting, where the projects are occurring, and what their added value is; calls on the Commission to increase visibility to insist on clear labelling of projects whether in the form of plaques for physical buildings or renovations, notifications on websites, announcements at conferences or trainings, labelled on printed documents;
Amendment 352 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 171 – point i a (new)
Paragraph 171 – point i a (new)
(i a) Halt payments for countries where milestones and targets have been reversed, if the Member State refuses to undo the reversal; apply the verification mechanism when analysing the fulfilment of milestones and targets as listed in the operational arrangements as these verification mechanisms provide more details about specific milestones and targets and thus their application would contribute to the accuracy of measurements; urges that for future performance-based instruments, the purpose of the verification mechanism be more clearly outlined, and that the mechanism are actually applied when measuring performance, particularly in view that with the RRF, verification mechanisms mentioned in the operational arrangements were very precise, but that in practice the Commission did not apply these when measuring performance;
Amendment 360 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 171 – point ii c (new)
Paragraph 171 – point ii c (new)
(ii c) improve the ex-post monitoring of continued fulfilment of milestones and targets; urges the Commission to actively follow potential reversal of milestones and targets, particularly in the area of rule of law, and to actively discuss financial consequences of reversals;
Amendment 361 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 171 – point iii a (new)
Paragraph 171 – point iii a (new)
(iii a) improve the transparency and presentation of the RRF Scoreboard by eliminating any possibility of misinterpretation of figures and double counting; consistently apply the definition of final recipients as listed in 22 2 d of the RRF regulation; perform regular checks of the adequacy of the control and monitoring systems of Member States; ensure a comparable level of precision in the evaluation of milestones and targets; ensure equal treatment to Member States when evaluating the fulfilment of milestones and targets; further encourage Member States to develop cross-border projects with real cross-border geographical components when revision country plans; reject any financing of recurring national budgetary expenditure using RRF funds if there are no exceptional reasons and suspend any payments immediately if Member States are found in breach of this provision; further 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 363 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 171 – point v i (new)
Paragraph 171 – point v i (new)
(v i) ensure full and unrestricted access to the Court in the performance of its duties, to RRF related data, explicitly the FENIX data base; ensure full and unrestricted access to OLAF and EPPO in the exercise of their duties to RRF related data in cooperation with the member states urges the Commission to communicate actively with member states on EPPOs responsibility for criminal cases in the area of RRF funds since corruption or fraud using RRF funds constitutes a crime against the financial interests of the European Union; urges member states responsible justice entities to cooperate intensively with EPPO and OLAF in this regard and to provide all necessary information; urges that for future performance-based instruments, the Commission look not just into Member State’s audit and control arrangements and the theoretical set-up on paper, but also into the actual functioning of the audit and control arrangements in practice with the goal of better protecting the financial interest of the Union and ensuring compliance with all EU and national rules; encourages the Commission to measure contribution to resilience more accurately and to depict this on the RRF scoreboard; 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, emphasises that the Commission should stress that Member States should avoid ‘cherry picking’, but rather should select funds according to what is most fitting and efficient for the program or project in question; stresses that Commission should keep a particular close eye on potential double funding with cohesion and RRF funds, as noted in ECA Review 01/2023; requests that the Commission put more emphasis on the involvement of local and regional needs by requesting the member states to work more actively with local regions in a co-governance approach. urges the Commission to keep the goal of resilience and recovery in mind, in particular with regards to strengthening the preparedness and resilience of health and pharmaceutical sector as well as in the sector of goods that are critical in the different situations of possibly occurring crisis;