Brussels, 17/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - In a report published on Monday 17 March, the Court of Auditors of the EU states that the results reported by the European Commission on the checks of agricultural expenditure carried out by the member states “are not reliable”.
The Court is of the opinion that: the Court's audits as well as the Commission's own audits show that the systems in place for administrative and on-the-spot checks in paying agencies were “only partially effective” in detecting irregular expenditure, thus “seriously undermining the reliability of the information the member states provide the Commission with”; - the work carried out at present by the certification bodies does not provide sufficient assurance either on the adequacy of the on-the-spot checks or on the reliability of the statistical reports. The Court considers that the information system at present available to the Commission does not effectively serve the Commission's needs. Some of the information currently made available is not fully relevant or is incomplete and inaccurate for the purpose of being used as such in the annual activity report and in the discharge procedure. The limited review of the member states' statistics by the Commission cannot ensure their reliability, the Court argues. Because of the weaknesses detailed in the present report, the information available to the Commission does not provide it with a reliable basis to estimate a residual error rate. In addition, the Commission's adjustments of the error rates resulting from the statistical reports are not statistically valid. By way of consequence, nor is the resultant residual error rate, the Court concludes. (LC)