Brussels, 23/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - During the cohesion fund simplification group meeting on Tuesday 21 June, the two rapporteurs on "gold plating", Anna Lisa Boni (Eurocities Secretary General) and Pawel Chorazy, the Polish Undersecretary of State to the Development Department, argued that greater flexibility in the auditing systems was necessary if the use of Structural Investment Funds (ESI) was to be simplified.
Anna Lisa Boni explained to EUROPE that they needed to adopt a more flexible follow-up control approach by focusing not just on respect for procedures but also on the end results. She said that it was essential to observe the proportionality principle and that a thorough audit should be carried out, for example, for expensive projects, while smaller scale controls should be applied to more modest ones.
In this connection she insisted that they abandon the "zero error" principle so dear to the heart of the European Court of Auditors (see EUROPE 11389). She said that the officials in charge of auditing had a tendency to search out a procedural error at all costs and that they "always finish by finding one". This climate of generalised distrust has a negative impact on the final beneficiaries who ultimately focus on "the strictest respect of procedures rather than the end results". The auditors also tended to make disproportionate recommendations to the different managing authorities.
One repercussion resulting from this error obsessiveness is that member states were demanding ever-increasing precisions from the Commission, which subsequently had to produce increasing numbers of guidances, delegated and enabling acts. Siim Kallas, the head of the high-level simplification group and former European Commissioner, who made "the fear of error" his warhorse (see EUROPE 11571) appeared to share the same interpretation.
The two co-rapporteurs also flagged up the delayed adoption and implementation of the primary and secondary legislation. They both highlighted the need to adopt the next regulatory framework for post-2020 cohesion policy, by 2018 at the latest. They would like this framework to be very clear, in an effort to avoid duplicating the number of guidances.
They also highlighted the mismatch between the ESI fund regulatory framework and that for state aid and public procurement orders, as well as the plethora of indicators for measuring performance in the use of funds, which are sometimes contradictory.
The co-rapporteurs are expected to submit their report to the high level group after the summer recess, in September or October. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)