Activities of Karin KADENBACH related to 2016/2151(DEC)
Shadow opinions (2)
OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section III – Commission and executive agencies
OPINION on discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, Section III – Commission and executive agencies
Amendments (12)
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Notes that the 2.9% error rate established by the European Court of Auditors for agriculture for 2015 - in 2014 it was 3.6% - continues to decline; regret and is the lowest rate for any of the policies under shared management; notes, however, that the estimated error rate is stimarginally above the 2% materiality threshold; points out that problems are administrative in nature, in many instances, and hence the error rate neither should be taken as a yardstick for fraud, inefficiency or waste nor necessarily means that monies have vanished, have been lost or have been squandered;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Notes that the error rate for the first pillar ofwithin the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (EAGF: 2.2%) isthere are two very different from thatbut complementary policies with divergent error rates: for the first pillar EAGF: 2.2% and for the second CAP pillar (EAFRD: 5.3%) and that that considerabl, with acknowledgement from the Court of the decreasing error rate in Rural Development over time, notes also the Court´s remark that Member States did not sufficiently take EU priorities into account1a, and considers that the difference is accounted for by the fact that the two CAP pillars differ in structure, design, scale and objectives; welcomes the fact that direct payments were predominantly regular; __________________ 1aAnnual Report of the ECA 2015 para 7.76
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Stresses that there is a significant difference in types of error, i.e. the distinction between negligence and l; notes that small errors (under 2%) in statement of eligible areas arge errors; notes that most of thenot easily detectable by farmers and paying agents and quantifiable errors involve overstating of eligible areas and that, overall, they account for 0.7% of the estimated aggregate error rate while there are only isolated instances of shortcomings on the part of national administrations or of infringements by them; points out furthermore that, in many instances, there has not been an investment failure, but, rather, there has been expenditure on projects ineligible for assistance;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Stresses that the reliability of information on CAP direct payments as reported by Member States is often seriously undermined as a result of misreporting; ; now includes reporting on where the Member State has made corrections as a result of early detection;
Amendment 28 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Notes that the error rates detected by the Court, with a small sample of payments tested (180) is now very close to that estimated by the Commission from its examination of thousands of on-the-spot checks, and considers that further significant reduction in error rates could only be achieved at a disproportionate cost in view of the measures which have already been put in place in recent years particularly in the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and financial corrections to protect the EU budget in this policy area;
Amendment 36 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Draws attention to the fact that many small-scale programmes, such asWelcomes the recent revision of the school fruit and school milk schemes, acre not user-friendly, partly because of the red tape involved, meaning less than perfectating a single, more user-friendly scheme than in the past, to improve acceptance and implementation; and welcomes Commissioner Hogan’'s simplification initiatives in proposing this connectrevision;
Amendment 45 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
Amendment 47 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Welcomes the usea new generation of additional financial instruments, though believes they must be designed with a sufficient degree of compatibility toclearer objectives and a sufficient degree of scrutiny at the end of the period of implementation to demonstrate their impact and ensure that they do not result in an increased error rate;
Amendment 57 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Welcomes the Commission’s proposed new approach to error rate analysis; welcomes also the Commission’'s new procedure, likely to be applied for the first time in 2016, for prior checks at farm level to prevent error, while retaining the method for dealing with minor errors;
Amendment 65 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Welcomes the continual updating of the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS), which makes it possible to record areas more precisely; realises that as a result of using this central control system there will inevitablyin Member States there could be an increase in error rates over the first few years, because of greinitially as more accurater data reliabilityis added, as the European Court of Auditors confirms, but that, in the long term, there will be lower error rates in this area; points out that there are already efforts and initiatives at Member State level for further simplification of the CAP while ensuring complete compatibility with GPS measurements;
Amendment 68 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Notes that the integrated administrative control system (IACS) is being used properlyfor direct payments, comprising databases of farm holdings and aid applications as well as LPIS, is effective in preventing and reducing error levels1a whilst noting that the Commission is monitoring the proper use of corrective actions to tackle a few areas of weakness, since the error rate reported by the Court of Auditors has been shown to be below 5%. __________________ 1a ECA annual report 2015 para 7.41
Amendment 70 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 10 a (new)
Paragraph 10 a (new)
10a. Welcomes inclusion of a wider range of indicators in its annual activity report to demonstrate trends in the policy area over time and encourages the Commission to continue this practice to better inform the co-legislators and the Court on development of the sector, its impact and wider context;