Brussels, 07/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 7 April, the budgetary control committee of the European Parliament recommended that the European Commission be granted discharge for the execution of the general budget of the EU for the financial year 2014.
The EP also passed the discharge test, as did the European Development Fund (EDF) and the European External Action Service (EEAS).
In their adoption of the report by Martina Dlabajová (ALDE, Czech Republic) on the discharge procedure for the general 2014 budget of the EU (Commission), the MEPs stressed that the EU budget must respect the new focus on results. It is therefore necessary to examine whether the programmes and projects financed by the EU correspond to the stated objectives. Amongst other things, the MEPs recommended a better synergy between the resources available in areas such as the neighbourhood policy, external aid and tackling youth unemployment.
Spending errors. The MEPs are concerned that the error rate for spending under the shared management of the Commission and the member states stands at 4.6%, which is well above the 2% threshold judged acceptable by the Court of Auditors of the EU. They note that the European Commission, which is legally responsible for the spending as a whole, should keep a close eye on implementation in the member states, which in fact manage 80% of all EU funding locally.
The MEPs call for a more vigilant position on discharge, inviting the Commission to control more frequently the areas and beneficiaries presenting high risks of errors, to focus on ex-ante controls, work with the member states to correct errors before declaring expenditure and to introduce greater transparency and flexibility in spending so that unused appropriations can be allocated to new priorities or programmes.
The Commission should be fully responsible for the recovery of unduly paid funds to the EU budget, but in order to do so, it should establish uniform principles regarding member state reporting, according to the budgetary control committee of the EP.
The recommendations of the budgetary control committee on the discharge 2014 will be voted on by the EP in Brussels on 28 April. Then, the Parliament will take its final decision in October 2016 on the postponed discharges. Readers may recall that the budgetary control committee of the EP decided on Monday 4 April to postpone the granting of discharge on the execution of the 2014 budgets of the Council (and of the European Council) and of three common enterprises: Artemis, ENIAC and ITER (see EUROPE 11525). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)