Ahead of the forthcoming opening of negotiations between Parliament and Council to finalise the arrangements for strengthening the EU Civil Protection Mechanism in the framework of the 2021-2027 budget (see EUROPE 12574/16), the Court of Auditors warned on 2 October against an increase in resources that is not sufficiently justified.
The Court agrees with the general objective of the European Commission’s proposal to ensure that in the event of a crisis or emergency, the EU can in future be better prepared and be able to react more quickly, in particular through its extended RescEU equipment reserve, drawing lessons from the management of the coronavirus crisis.
“This is a step forward”, said Leo Brincat, the member of the Court responsible for the opinion.
But the fact that the Commission is largely increasing the budget from €1.4 billion to €3.5 billion is problematic.
Indeed, in the absence of a genuine assessment of the needs justifying an increase of €2 billion and in the absence of an estimate of the costs associated with the new tasks entrusted to the Civil Protection Mechanism, the Court finds it impossible to determine whether or not the proposed budget is appropriate to achieve the objectives pursued.
The auditors note that some of the proposed new objectives do not have performance indicators or specific monitoring. Furthermore, the proposal does not guarantee a minimum level of expenditure for each of the three pillars - prevention, preparedness and response.
They therefore consider that it would be useful to provide for a mechanism for the reporting of actual expenditure incurred under the reinforced Civil Protection Mechanism for each of the three pillars.
On the other hand, the Court welcomes the proposed changes to the public procurement rules which, if accepted, would allow the Commission to contract directly for the purchase of equipment and thus be more autonomous while reducing the burden on Member States. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)