Brussels, 15/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - “We can achieve much greater economy in rural development by keeping costs under control. Each 1 % saving would result in €500 million of total benefit by 2020”, said Kevin Cardiff, Court of Auditors member responsible for the report on rural development (2007-2013) that was presented on Monday 15 December.
Member states implemented around half of the €100 billion EU rural development expenditure programmed for 2007-2013 by awarding grants towards the costs of investments and other projects undertaken by farmers, rural businesses, associations and local authorities.
The EU auditors found that more effective approaches to controlling the costs of these grants were already available to Member states but these were not widely applied. As a result, member states' control systems were geared towards checking the prices of the items or works in the grant applications, without paying equal attention to whether the items themselves were appropriate. The checks were sometimes time-consuming but gave little assurance that the costs approved were reasonable, the Court said. It noted, for example, that: - some member states compared costs with manufacturers' list prices that were 25-30% above the actual market prices; - the Commission did not offer guidance or spread good practice at the start of the 2007-2013 programming period. Since 2012, the Commission has adopted a more active and coordinated approach, the auditors state. If followed through with a greater focus on economy, this should lead to better financial management in the 2014-2020 programming period, the report concludes. (LC)